Christian students take 'equality' row to court

Christian students are taking legal action against their university's Student Guild in an equal opportunities row.

The Exeter University Evangelical Christian Union today issued High Court proceedings seeking a judicial review.

They claim to be the first students in the UK to take legal action against the Guild and university under the Human Rights Act.

They want quashed the decision to suspend the CU from the Guild, which they maintain violates the rights of association of religious bodies.

The CU, which will be represented by a civil rights barrister, took the action after advising the Guild and the university authorities that they had failed to support their right as Christians to the freedoms of speech, belief and association.

The 50-year-old CU is currently suspended from the official list of student societies on campus.

It has had its Student Union bank account frozen, and has been banned from free use of Student Guild premises, or advertising events within Guild facilities.

The Student Guild claims the CU constitution and activities do not conform to its equal opportunities policies.

The CU said today that the Guild has refused to reinstate it, and CU committee member Ben Martin added: "Legal action was the very last thing we wanted to take.

"We are all students trying to concentrate on our studies, but the action by the Guild, in blatant infringement of our rights, and their reluctance to reinstate us, has left us with no alternative."

The Guild had suggested to the CU that mediation and negotiation might help, but the CU was adamant that when it came to fundamental human rights, "there is nothing to mediate or negotiate about", added Mr Martin.

He added that if the Guild had reinstated the CU as a full society, then he and others would have been happy to meet the Guild and look afresh at how its equal opportunities policies related to religious societies.

The CU expects a first hearing of the case at the High Court in London in March or April.

The Guild said the suspension was put in place because the CU's constitution said members had to sign a declaration of evangelical values.

Guild president Jemma Percy said that, because of the requirement to sign the declaration, "participation in the society was not open to every student".

The Guild said on its website: "The premise of the situation is that students felt that, as students fund our societies and as our equal opportunities policy states, all activities should be open to all students.

"The ECU is the only society identified that has barriers to entry, both for membership of the society and to be on the committee of the society.

"This is certainly not a debate regarding the beliefs of the society, it is one of equal opportunities."

The CU said that in 50 years this was the first complaint about its name and what it stood for.

A spokesman for the 220-strong CU on campus said earlier that the policy introduced at the university was "equal opportunity gone mad".