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Committee hears competing arguments on House Bill 875 over campus organizations' leadership and funding
Summary
Supporters of House Bill 875 say the measure protects the First Amendment rights of student ideological and religious groups to select leaders consistent with their beliefs; opponents say the bill would force public schools to fund or facilitate groups that could discriminate against students and that the statute's funding implications are broad.
The committee heard public testimony on House Bill 875, which would require public institutions of higher education to treat student organizations with religious or ideological purposes the same as other student groups with respect to access to campus facilities and channels of communication, and to allow such organizations to select leaders consistent with their stated beliefs.
Sponsor Representative Darren Chapel said the bill "states that ideological groups of students... have the same ability as all other student organizations in the university systems to be able to exist, to have access to all of the same classroom space, meeting space, access to public access, radio, television"…
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