We recentlky told you about a student group at Notre Dame which backs traditional marriage. They were denied recognition by the school. Now Notre Dame is being forced to respond.

Susan Kruth of The FIRE reports.

Notre Dame Offers Weak Excuse for Denying Controversial Student Group Recognition

The University of Notre Dame is refusing to officially recognize the student group Students for Child-Oriented Policy (SCOP), which advocates for what it calls “child-oriented” policies—most notably, “traditional marriage”—in the state of Indiana. Notre Dame’s mission statement says that the university’s goals include providing a forum for “free inquiry and open discussion,” and that “the University insists upon academic freedom which makes open discussion and inquiry possible.”

So what interest trumped this broad promise to its students? According to Notre Dame, SCOP too “closely mirrored” other student groups on campus.

Last Friday, FIRE wrote to the University of Notre Dame to address the insufficiency of this excuse. The university’s rationale is inaccurate on its face, demonstrates a troubling double standard, and was asserted under suspicious circumstances, as the group’s stance against same-sex marriage had garnered significant criticism from many in the Notre Dame community.

An initial decision letter from Director of Student Activities for Programming Margaret S. Hnatusko didn’t specify to which organizations SCOP was supposedly too similar. Notre Dame’s student-run Club Coordination Council (CCC) President Jimmy McEntee told the National Catholic Register that in recommending that the school deny SCOP recognition, CCC deemed the Orestes Brownson Council on Catholicism and American Politics (OBC) and the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) to be similar to SCOP in nature. But OBC focuses on Catholicism broadly; SCOP’s mission is narrow, and SCOP describes itself as nonsectarian. CDF, meanwhile, states on its website that it aims to educate the community about issues of child poverty, a marked difference from SCOP’s focus. Further, it’s unclear whether CDF is even still active, since the site was last updated over seven years ago.