Prepared Remarks of ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Nathan Woodliff-Stanley on CO House Bill 1048, Concerning Religious Freedom for Student Groups at State Institutions of Higher Learning.
Thank you, Madame Chair and members of the Committee. My name is Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado, and I speak in opposition to House Bill 1048.
This bill would force Colorado public universities to recognize and support student groups that discriminate in violation of longstanding university policies.
I want to be clear that the ACLU strongly supports religious freedom, freedom of association, and freedom of speech, and students in colleges and universities are free to hold beliefs, express their opinions, and form groups as they wish. What they do not have the right to do is to get official recognition and public funding for these groups when they violate equal protection or nondiscrimination policies. Public colleges and universities should strive to ensure that educational opportunities are open to all, including student organizations and leadership opportunities.
The Supreme Court made clear in Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez that a university may impose viewpoint-neutral conditions on student groups such as requiring that groups receiving university funds or other privileges be open to all students. This bill essentially seeks to circumvent that ruling. Students are free to believe what they wish, but discriminatory conduct does not have to be supported and recognized. Any mandates on group conduct should be to prevent discrimination, not to allow or promote it.
The bottom line is that state funding of discriminatory organizations is wrong and harmful to students and higher education. Please vote no on HB 1048.

Class exercise about prostitution not “sexual harassment,” say national organizations in response to intimidation and threats by the University of Colorado-Boulder directed at sociology professor Patti Adler.
Joint statement warns CU-Boulder's violation of academic freedom could have chilling effects across higher education

BOULDER–A joint statement released today by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), ACLU of Colorado (ACLU-CO), Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and Student Press Law Center takes aim at the University of Colorado Boulder for its attempts to silence and intimidate Professor Patti Adler because of a class exploring the issue of prostitution.
The organizations are calling on the University to re-instate Professor Adler's popular "Deviance in U.S. Society" course–with Adler as instructor–"without further reviews or conditions." Adler reported in December that she had been advised that the course was being cancelled, and that she was given the choice to return, but not teach the course, or to take early retirement. The University's actions were reportedly due to concerns that a classroom exercise in which teaching assistants role-play as prostitutes might constitute sexual harassment. Adler has used the exercise for many years in the course, which regularly attracts 500 students.
"We felt it was critical to organize a national response in this case both to support academic freedom and free speech on campus, and to clarify that sexual harassment laws and policies were never intended to chill legitimate academic inquiry into subjects like sexuality and sexual deviance. The distinction is essential to a myriad of important subjects of university study, such as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Courbet’s painting L’Origine du monde," said NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin.
"Classroom discussion of issues related to sex and sexuality is not sexual harassment," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. "By suggesting otherwise, and raising the possibility of disciplinary proceedings, the CU administration unjustifiably threatens to silence not only Professor Adler, but any professor whose classroom teaching may touch on sensitive topics."
The statement outlines a decade of landmark Supreme Court decisions defining sexual harassment, which must be "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" behavior of a sexual nature. In contrast, a "mere offensive utterance" in the classroom or an "isolated instance" does not amount to sexual harassment.
NCAC and the other co-signers have dismissed CU Boulder's latest offer to reinstate Adler after a faculty review of her class as insufficient "since this course was apparently singled out for extraordinary scrutiny based solely on the content, in violation of fundamental First Amendment principles." Such a review "inevitably has a chilling effect, not only on Professor Adler, but on the faculty as whole and even on faculty at other Universities."

Tomorrow, January 1, 2014, Colorado will become the first state in the country where state-licensed stores selling recreational marijuana are open for business. Under a system of taxation and regulation, these stores, which are located in several Colorado counties, will serve people 21 or older.
The possession, purchase, and sale of marijuana will no longer carry the threat of criminal charges.
Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, had this reaction:
“In Colorado, we see the first state in the nation to implement a truly common-sense approach to marijuana. By legalizing marijuana, Colorado has stopped the needless and racially biased enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws.
“This change will bring both justice and savings. Colorado will save millions previously spent arresting and penalizing people who use marijuana, and will instead generate millions in revenue through the taxation and regulation of its sale and possession.
“With Washington State next to implement marijuana legalization and other states strongly considering enacting similar laws, we believe this marks the beginning of the end of the nation’s decades-long War on Marijuana and its harmful human and fiscal toll.”
More information about racial disparities in the enforcement of marijuana laws: https://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests