(CN) — University of Iowa administrators who violated the constitutional rights of a religious student organization are not entitled to qualified immunity that would protect them from individual liability, a federal appeals court held Friday.
The Iowa City-based state university revoked the status of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as a registered student organization, saying the group violated the university’s human rights policy by requiring officers to affirm the organization’s statement of Christian faith, including an opposition to same-sex relationships.
A federal judge in Des Moines ruled in 2019 that the revocation violated InterVarsity’s First Amendment rights. The judge also ruled that individual administrators named in the suit were not entitled to qualified immunity protecting them from having to pay damages to plaintiffs out of their own pockets.
While the university did not appeal the trial court’s ruling that it violated InterVarsity’s constitutional rights, it appealed the qualified immunity issue to the Eighth Circuit.
After hearing oral arguments in January, the St. Louis-based appeals court upheld the denial of qualified immunity Friday.
The action against the university was brought in 2018 by Becket, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm that focuses on protecting the free expression of all religious traditions. Becket praised Friday’s ruling in a statement saying the decision makes clear that university officials who enact or enforce unconstitutional policies “should be on notice that they are not entitled to qualified immunity and will be held personally accountable for their actions.”
A spokesperson for the university said in a statement Friday that “the university respects the decision of the court and will move forward in accordance with the decision.”
Qualified immunity is a legal standard that shields public officials from civil damages provided their conduct does not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” according to the Eighth Circuit's opinion written by U.S. Circuit Judge Jonathan Kobes, a Donald Trump appointee.
The three-judge panel found the trial court correctly ruled that the University of Iowa violated InterVarsity’s First Amendment rights. The university’s human rights policy was “viewpoint neutral” but not as it was applied in this case, Kobes wrote. That’s because while InterVarsity was deregistered as a student organization for violating the nondiscrimination policy, other student groups were permitted to base their membership and leadership choices on traits, such as sex and race, that are protected by human rights policy.
For example, the court noted, university officials did not punish another campus organization called LoveWorks, which violated the policy by requiring its members and leaders to sign a “gay-affirming statement of Christian faith.”
“We are hard-pressed to find a clearer example of viewpoint discrimination,” Kobes wrote.
“What the university did here was clearly unconstitutional,” he added. “It targeted religious groups for differential treatment under the human rights policy — while carving out exemptions and ignoring other violative groups with missions they presumably supported. The university and individual defendants turned a blind eye to decades of First Amendment jurisprudence or they proceeded full speed ahead knowing they were violating the law. Either way, qualified immunity provides no safe haven.”
Kobes was joined on the unanimous panel by U.S. Circuit Judges James Loken, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Steven Grasz, another Trump appointee.
Regarding the amount of money sought, a spokesman for Becket said InterVarsity suffered damages, including lost staff time and reputational injury, and the amount will be determined by a jury at trial.
In a related case, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled in 2019 that the university violated Business Leaders in Christ's constitutional rights of free speech and free exercise of religion by stripping the Christian student organization's campus privileges after it refused to elect a gay male to a leadership position.
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