Virginia State University

Virginia Union and Fayetteville State going down.

Big ups to Winston-Salem and Virginia State.

Texas Southern got Alcorn State.

Big up to Central State and Lane in the building.

Hey Todd, it's great to be with you today, and yeah, it's amazing the things that college administrators come up with to violate constitutional freedoms on a daily basis.

Virginia State University this summer implemented a new policy that told Christian campus ministries, these are student ministries run by students, that all of them had to come under the authority of a campus minister.

But they excluded from the policy the Muslim Student Association, they excluded secular associations, so this was directed explicitly at Christian clubs.

and it denied them the ability to associate with outside groups.

That's correct, Todd.

In fact, both of those organizations, Women's Victory and Bethel, are associated with broader national organizations.

And one of the consequences of this policy is that the national organizations can no longer support the clubs on campus at Virginia State University.

They've been denied that right.

Uh, some rather significant topics, I think, to address this afternoon.

Uh, for one, we have to go all the way back to the Commonwealth of Virginia, uh, where two Christian student organizations at, uh, Virginia State University are suing the university, alleging that a new policy unfairly targets religious groups and violates students' First Amendment rights.

They have very, very compelling evidence that, uh, that they have entered into their pleadings.

The federal lawsuit was actually file- filed just yesterday in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that advocates for, uh, religious freedom and other causes.

I think it's also naming and looking at the cruelty that's happening in this country at this moment.

And when I was in college and universidad, I had the privilege to go to a historical black college, Virginia State University.

And I remember learning about the fugitive slave acts at that time and how our African-American brothers and sisters were persecuted with slave catchers and how these bounty hunters were paid.

And it almost reminds me a little bit like some similarities of what we're seeing now with state sanctioned violence against immigrant communities that you have masked men who don't identify themselves, who kidnap our communities and sometimes even kill them.

In a way, they're alternative too.

But what I loved about them is they're just two guys that met at Virginia State University, I believe it was, college guys that were both wanting to make it.

They were having fun with it.

They were getting together and creating stuff.