After Powell told Chung the group’s constitution might violate the College’s non-discrimination policy, he said he thought Chung asked that the group’s application for a grant be rescinded.

Their constitution lists as one of the requirements for membership that the “Individual claims Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord.”

Chung said that the group has no current plans to resubmit their grant application.

The HRCF case has led other religious and cultural student groups to reflect on the necessity of setting requirements for members and leaders to safeguard the groups’ missions.

Benjamin P. Solomon-Schwartz ’03, president of Harvard Hillel, said he does not believe a faith requirement for leaders of religious groups is essential.

He added that while some have expressed concerns that people without an interest in the Jewish community at Harvard could ascend to elected positions in Hillel because the group’s constitution has no religious faith requirements for its leaders, “I don’t think that’s a real concern. It doesn’t seem necessary to write that [religious faith requirement] into the constitution.”

Under Construction’s religious requirement “didn’t pose a problem in the past because it’s self-selected,” Chung said.

Avi D. Heilman ’03, former president of Harvard Students for Israel and a member of the Society of Arab Students (SAS), said he shouldn’t be excluded from SAS even though many SAS members strongly disagree with his views.

“I don’t think it puts the identity of any group in danger,” he said of not having constitutional stipulations that discriminate on the basis of religious or ideological beliefs when choosing leadership. “I don’t think I endanger the identity of the Society of Arab Students.”

He also said that if a group were “taken over” by those who disagree with the group’s professed purpose, “I feel the members should just start another group.”

While some student leaders like Heilman and Solomon-Schwartz oppose the membership and leadership restrictions, at least one national activist group is fighting to preserve them.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based group that focuses on free-speech issues at colleges and universities throughout the country, has protested similar incidents of administrative intervention in religious student groups on other campuses.

The administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill threatened its chapters of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship—a national, interdenominational organization that has chapters on over 500 campuses—with loss of funding and recognition unless they eliminated the faith requirement for their leaders by the end of this month.

After an outcry against the demands, the university reversed itself, allowing the chapters to keep the requirement.

FIRE also criticized Rutgers University in New Jersey for withdrawing funding and access to university facilities from a resident chapter of InterVarsity. FIRE Legal Network attorney David A. French filed a lawsuit against Rutgers in Federal District Court. FIRE itself does not litigate.