Christian students at the University of Exeter are threatening to take legal action against the campus's student guild in a row over equal opportunities policies.
The 50-year-old Christian Union (CU) said in a statement today that it had been temporarily suspended from the official list of student societies there. The president of the Guild of Students, Jemma Percy, denied this was the case.
Its happened again! The EducationGuardian is reporting there is a tiff between the CU at Exeter and thier Students' Union (Guild,) following an almost identical situation last January in Birmingam.
At Reading the Christian Union are not a formal part of the Students' Union because they break our equal opportunities policy. The policy not only promotes tolerance and understanding, it protects people's right of opportunity to take part in any Students' Union activity regardless of age, race, sex, disability and religion. To be on the CU Committee you must sign a declaration of faith to Jesus, thereby disqualifying people based on their religion.
However, unlike the CU lot at Exeter, the CU at Reading understand the situation and we work together for mutual benefit - we have the same students after all! I was pleased to host an event for the CU the other week, aiming to break down some of the myths of christianity and how it fits into modern society.
This year, like last, I made the concious effort to make sure the new Committee understood the Union's position, and the CU are quite happy the way they are so lets get on and have some fun!
The CU at Reading have an excellent track record of promotion and planning events, there is much to be learnt from their commitment.
2 comments:
Maybe I'm a bit biased as a Reading graduate, but I'm glad to see that RUSU and the Reading CU have managed to co-exist without all the media hyping rubbish and threats of court action that is going on elsewhere.
It certainly disproves a lot of the stuff about CU's being forced underground if they aren't affiliated with the SU.
Thank God common sense always managed to prevail at Reading..!
According to my girlfriend (Who's at Exeter and has housemates in the CU), the issue is further complicated by the fact that there's other societies, such as the Conservative society, who make their members sign similar declarations upon joining. I don't know how much of this is true and how much of this is enraged CU hyperbole, mind...
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