“I definitely accept and respect the committee’s decision,” said CCL member Anthony C. Biagioli ’06, who voted against allowing the provision. “But I didn’t really feel the changes that were made were sufficient.”

Biagioli questioned the purpose of CCL’s examination of the matter.

“I’m not really sure what the point of the debate was, if these requirements for the leaders are all right,” Biagioli said.

Axsom said she also voted against allowing the provisions to stand.

“Since the clause strikes at least some of us as potentially discriminatory, I believe a sound, clear and logical explanation must be provided for such an exceptional clause,” Axsom said.

HRCF has agreed to include a provision in its constitution explicitly stating that all members of the Harvard community are welcome to join the organization. But requirements for the general membership were never at issue, according to Illingworth.

The original constitution stated that members need to demonstrate only a “willingness to cooperate in the purposes of the organization,” and made no doctrinal requirements.

It was the requirements for the group’s leaders that were the initial sticking point for College administrators, but the updated constitution makes no changes to those provisions.

The provisions in question came to the attention of College officials after a council meeting in November, when Undergradate Councilrepresentative Jason L. Lurie ’05 said that the council should not fund HRCF because of its possibly discriminatory policies.

In January, Lewis said that the clause was both inappropriate and superfluous, arguing that other religious groups had consistently chosen officers that subscribed to their faith without such a constitutional requirement.

But the inevitability of HRCF’s choosing Christian leaders—the same fact that some used to argue that the clause was unnecessarily restrictive—is now being used as a rationale to preserve the provision.

Illingworth wrote in an e-mail earlier this week that “there is little reason to split the hair between a clause in the constitution restricting what officers should believe and the expectation that any organization will inevitably select officers in support of its stated purposes.”

Axsom disagreed.

“Since HRCF, I assume, has identified upholding the principles of the Christian faith as part of their mission, it seems the selection of HRCF’s leadership would be exactly the same with or without the clause,” she said.

“I have not heard a persuasive reason for the necessity of the clause. Dozens upon dozens of student groups operate without such a clause,” Axsom added.