{"id":67348,"date":"2021-04-29T15:19:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T20:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=67348"},"modified":"2021-04-29T15:19:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T20:19:21","slug":"67348","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=67348","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

U. OF PENNSYLVANIA CAPITULATES; APPROVES HUNTING, ARCHERY, AND SHOOTING CLUB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PHILADELPHIA, April 29, 2021 \u2014 After more than a year in limbo, the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Hunting, Archery, and Shooting Club is officially a recognized student group.<\/p>\n

Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and with help from FIRE Legal Network attorney\u00a0Patricia Hamill<\/b><\/a>, the university relented this week and processed the group\u2019s registration.<\/p>\n

On March 17, FIRE\u00a0called on<\/b><\/a>\u00a0Penn to stop engaging in viewpoint discrimination and promptly recognize the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased that Penn finally hit the mark,\u201d said FIRE Senior Program Officer Zach Greenberg. \u201cHowever, the approval is long overdue. It should not take a year for a university to make good on its promises to uphold students\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In March 2020, a group of Penn students applied to register the Hunting, Archery, and Shooting Club. Despite Penn\u2019s ostensible commitment to students\u2019 rights and the students meeting all necessary criteria for club recognition, the club\u2019s application languished for over a year, even as other groups received approval. Penn claimed that due to the \u201cnature of the group\u2019s mission,\u201d it could not make an approval decision until the university returned to normal operations because of concerns that the group would need to meet in person. However, other groups that intended to meet in person, such as the surfing club, were approved during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

A delayed approval meant that the club was denied the full array of university resources to fundraise, advertise, host virtual events, and grow its membership as an official Penn student organization. By putting off its registration for so long, Penn prevented the group from meaningfully participating within the Penn academic community.<\/p>\n

Penn\u2019s obstinate refusal to process the club\u2019s application for registration violated the university\u2019s\u00a0\u201cGuidelines on Open Expression,\u201d<\/b><\/a>\u00a0which state that the university \u201caffirms, supports and cherishes the concepts of freedom of thought, inquiry, speech, and lawful assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n

FIRE first\u00a0wrote<\/b><\/a>\u00a0to Penn on Feb. 3; the university\u00a0responded<\/b><\/a>\u00a0that it was \u201cworking hard\u201d to keep the campus safe but did not address the club\u2019s application specifically. March\u2019s\u00a0letter<\/b><\/a>\u00a0called on Penn to immediately process the club\u2019s application for registration so that interested students could gather virtually and plan for in-person events after the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Now, the club can meet virtually as an official group, recruit interested peers, and plan ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university tried to camouflage its bias by using COVID as an excuse, but FIRE knows how to spot blatant viewpoint discrimination,\u201d Greenberg said. \u201cWe are glad to see Penn ultimately come to the right conclusion, and we hope that in future, students at Penn will be promptly afforded the rights promised by their school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hunting club told FIRE they were grateful for the Office of Student Affairs\u2019 support once the registration was approved: \u201cWe would also like to thank FIRE, our counsel Patricia Hamill and Joe Jesiolowski, and everyone else who supported us along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U. OF PENNSYLVANIA CAPITULATES; APPROVES HUNTING, ARCHERY, AND SHOOTING CLUB. PHILADELPHIA, April 29, 2021 \u2014 After more than a year in limbo, the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Hunting, Archery, and Shooting Club is officially a recognized student group. Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and with help from FIRE Legal Network … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-schools","category-rights","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67349,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67348\/revisions\/67349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}