SUNY Broome Community College recognized Campus Bible Fellowship as a student organization for twenty-nine consecutive years — from 1996 to 2025. Then, for the 2025-2026 school year, Director of Student Activities Nick Kocienewski rejected the club's application because its constitution requires leaders to have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
A Christian club requiring Christian leaders. Apparently that's the new red line in the sand for college administrators.
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer filed a complaint citing ten sections of the Constitution. The school's position, according to ADF, amounts to "preventing it from reserving campus space and accessing financial resources" — resources funded by the $215 student activity fee every student pays per semester. Campus Bible Fellowship president Jacob Seachrist and every other student at SUNY Broome pay that fee. The difference is Seachrist's club can't access any of it.
Langhofer put the absurdity plainly: "Forcing CBF to accept leaders who don't share their religious beliefs fundamentally alters their religious expression." The school wants an open-leadership policy applied universally, which sounds reasonable until you think about it for eight seconds. Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Counsel Colten Stanberry offered the clearest analogy: it's "telling a Yankees fan club that it has to let a Red Sox fan be president."
SUNY Broome isn't alone. Out in Washington state, Whitman College — which prominently advertises its commitment to "freedom of speech, expression, and association" — rejected the Whitman Republican Club. The student senate voted 25-0 against recognition. Not close. Unanimous.
Club Chairman David Dunbabin noted that roughly 50 percent of the club's board members are immigrants. The senate's objection centered on platform language about deporting "pro-Hamas radicals." So a club that's half immigrants got rejected unanimously for being too anti-immigrant.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent Whitman a letter on August 31 with a September 14 deadline to respond. David French, the New York Times columnist and former FIRE president, has written extensively about these cases. The legal precedent here runs through the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Martinez v. Christian Legal Society, which gave public universities some room to enforce all-comers policies. But Whitman is a private college that made specific free speech promises in its own materials. When you voluntarily commit to expressive freedom in your marketing, you don't get to invoke the fine print when conservatives show up.
The pattern isn't subtle. Kern Community College District settled similar claims — paying out millions over the past two years after getting caught doing exactly what SUNY Broome is doing now. Recognized clubs get access to funding capped at $500 per year. The money is almost beside the point. What recognition provides is legitimacy, meeting space, and visibility. Denying it is a soft ban dressed up as a procedural decision.
Every one of these schools has a diversity statement on its website. Apparently it covers everything except viewpoint.
