First, I do not believe this was ever a matter of the Catholics kicking off the Evangelicals. It was a decision by the Protestant Campus Ministry, which the University appears to be supporting. Beyond that, understand that InterVarsity (at least at GU) is not a Protestant organization, but one where we have active members and leaders from both Catholic and Protestant traditions.

Second, none of these affiliated ministries were subsidized by the University. Unlike other clubs under the Student Activities Committee, we received no university money, but instead relied on independent donations from alumni and students.

Third, InterVarsity (and Chi Alpha, etc) WAS invited on to campus, by students, a great many years ago. It is not an outside group coming and telling students thing, but instead a student-initiated, student-led group which has ties to a national organization. We do have three staff workers who are funded through IV donations, but two of those are recent alumni, and by no means from outside the community.

As to what triggered the change, I have a genuinely hard time answering this question. The reasons we have been given are that Protestant Ministries (under which the university placed IV) is undergoing a restructuring and is headed in a 'new direction' with the goal of strengthening and uniting the Protestant students, and so there is no longer a place for us. We are no longer allowed to organize or advertise on campus, nor to link with Georgetown or InterVarsity, nor are we allowed to request rooms in which to meet, and we have been strongly dissuaded from making contacts with freshmen.

Yeah, that's as non-story as you can get. The only groups not allowed are those that can't get *one lousy student* to invite them. Those are exactly the groups that don't need to be there.

The $20 million to Georgetown (Harvard got an equal amount) is in the hands of the Unversity administration, not some cult or band or terrorists. (That totals $40 million. What would Quigley say about this innumeracy?!)

And I certainly think there's room for enhanced Christian/Muslim, Western/Arab, American/Saudi understanding, again as Fiona demonstrates.

Although from the link it doesn't really sound like it is a "Catholic University" thing, but that the protestant campus chaplains are trying to excersize more oversight as to what groups are meeting and what their goals are.

It doesn't even look like the situation is permanent, because it appears the students can sponser the groups, and reserve the rooms, and the groups can meet.

So, I guess from my impression this is an internal protestant thing more than a Catholic thing.

Um, what part of a Catholic school do you not understand?

Um, Georgetown is a private institution. They can do what they want.

Since you didn't provide a link to the source of this information it is hard to assess it, but since it seems that there are no students involved in these groups, why should they be able to freeload off a PRIVATE university?

Can you walk into Microsoft and demand that you be given a space for a weekly meeting and then use their copyrighted name in sponsoring your group?

Why in the world should the University subsidize these groups? If there really are "100 to 300" students "active" in these groups, your excerpt clearly states that these allegedly "banned" groups can still organize on campus if a student requests it. So what's the big deal?