The Eighth Circuit affirmed school administrators are not entitled to qualified immunity for punishing a Christian student group that required its leaders to abide by its beliefs. Macbride Hall at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. (Photo by David Mark from Pixabay via Courthouse News) (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 […]
