Greg Lukianoff, president of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has an interesting guest blogpost on The Volokh Conspiracy discussing FIRE's policy on private colleges. In short, FIRE evaluates private colleges by their upfront commitment to freedom of speech. Hence institutions who are openly committed to religious values over freedom of speech do not have their feet held to the fire when they suppress free speech. Examples he gives are Brigham Young and Liberty University. Freedom of association, in short, has some weight when it comes to other commitments. This one could argue is as it should be, as it to is a constitutional right.
Those of us in academia should be familiar with this; at least when I was a new Ph.D. it was commonplace for some colleges to be explicit about what sort of commitments you were to uphold. I remember one institution that required as a condition of employment a testament that the Devil was an actual person. Similarly, my beloved Wabash is permitted to refuse admission to females based on freedom of association. Such freedom of association has limits, and rightfully so, but there's something aesthetically pleasing about a country that allows like-minded individuals to gather peacably together.
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