The University of Minnesota recently canceled plans to offer a course on faith and health in the face of a lawsuit challenging the class on First Amendment grounds, raising anew the question of where to draw the line between teaching religion and promoting it.
In 2002 the university's Academic Health Center joined with Luther Seminary and Fairview Health Services, a local health care organization, to create the Minnesota Faith Health Consortium. The objectives of the consortium include "increasing understanding of the links between faith and health," according to the group's Web site. The course was part of a three-part Faith/Health Leadership program sponsored by the organization.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation of Wisconsin sued the university in March. The suit contended that a public university using government funds to promote religion represented a violation of the First Amendment. In response, the university withdrew from the consortium, but Freedom From Religion did not drop the lawsuit until the university agreed in early September not to offer the course.
"At a public university there should be an academic purpose behind (the study of religion), not a devotional purpose," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of Freedom From Religion. She said there are religious studies courses at the university that she would not "quibble" with because they do not "cross the line" into promotion of religion.
Mark Cladis, professor of religious studies at Brown, said it is often difficult to distinguish between teaching about faith and supporting a specific religious viewpoint. He added that disciplines such as environmental science and women's studies do sometimes promote specific views but that "religion is treated as a special subject in universities ... because of the First Amendment."
He said that "promoting particular religious practices is not appropriate ... for the religious studies department at Brown."
"A university is a perfectly appropriate place to discuss religion in many contexts," said Michael McKeown, professor of medical science. But there is a difference between proselytizing and appropriate study, he said.
"It's certainly important, required even, that we steer clear of proselytizing, advocating, or even encouraging particular religious perspectives or viewpoints," said Mark B. Rotenberg, general counsel for the University of Minnesota, in an interview with Inside Higher Ed News. "But it's too easy to say you can't talk about faith in the health sciences. I don't think that's what the Constitution requires," he said. It is not clear if the content of the course would have been unacceptable since the offering was withdrawn before it was finalized, he said.
He also said that because the university cancelled the course rather than go to trial, there are no new limits on what it can teach. He told the Minnesota Daily that the "decision to not offer the course is not an indication that we're giving up our efforts to engage in wide-ranging academic research in faith-based care. We may come up with another, different course in the future."
Because the suit did not go to trial, the case does not offer a firm precedent for future conflicts, Gaylor said. The foundation is currently building a new lawsuit against a different university and claims it will sue the University of Minnesota again if it tries to offer a similar class.
