University of Idaho pays out $90K to settle free speech lawsuit with Christian group
Jeremiah Poff
The University of Idaho agreed to pay $90,000 to settle a lawsuit that was filed by three Christian students and a professor who were hit with a no-contact order after expressing opposition to same-sex marriage.
The settlement, disclosed this week, resolves a lawsuit filed by Peter Perlot, Mark Miller, and Ryan Alexander, who are part of the Christian Legal Society, and their faculty adviser Richard Seamon in April after the university issued them a no-contact order for engaging with a law student who questioned why the group required members to maintain that marriage is between one man and one woman.
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“Today’s university students will be tomorrow’s leaders, judges, and school administrators, so it’s imperative that university officials model the First Amendment freedoms they are supposed to be teaching their students,” Tyson Langhofer, the director of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Academic Freedom, said in a press release. “We’re pleased to settle this case favorably on behalf of Peter, Mark, Ryan, and Professor Seamon, and we hope that it will encourage all public universities across the country to support the constitutionally protected freedom of students and professors to share their deeply held beliefs on campus.”
The university had issued a no-contact order against the group after a law student asked the students why the Christian Legal Society required its officers to assert that marriage must be between a man and a woman. According to the lawsuit, Perlot gave the law student a handwritten note offering to discuss the topic further, while the student condemned the group’s religious beliefs during a public panel with the American Bar Association.
The no-contact orders were issued shortly thereafter, but the lawsuit said the four plaintiffs were not told why the orders were issued.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, University of Idaho spokeswoman Jodi Walker said the settlement was “a good business decision” for the university that is “in the best interest of our students, the university and the state of Idaho.”
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“Litigation costs money and time as well as creates the potential for ongoing trauma to students. The university is often disadvantaged in such a case as laws prevent us from sharing the full story early in litigation without permission of our students. This case, for us, has always been about safe access to education, which is paramount. This settlement achieves all of those objectives,” she said.