Thursday, August 10, 2006

UW-Madison apologizes for mishandling Knights of Columbus announcement

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A top University of Wisconsin-Madison official apologized Thursday for erroneously announcing the school had reached an agreement to recognize a Knights of Columbus affiliate as a student group.

The university announced late Wednesday that it had an agreement to recognize a branch of the Catholic service organization that would be open to all students. The university had earlier refused to approve the group because its membership was limited to Catholic men, violating a state anti-discrimination law.

But the group's faculty adviser, Mark Etzel, said no agreement had been reached because the Knights had not agreed to changes the university wanted to make to the group's mission and membership policies. He had objected to the announcement after it was issued, warning a school spokesman in an e-mail, "Do not release this false information to the media."

After standing by the release for most of the day on Thursday, Casey Nagy, executive assistant to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, issued a statement in the afternoon saying the university mistakenly believed it had resolved the issue last night.
[snip]

The university is facing a potential lawsuit and criticism over its decision to strip recognition of a group that claims 1.7 million members worldwide and had operated on campus for 30 years. A lack of recognition means a group cannot rent space on campus, recruit students at UW-sponsored events or use the school's name in its title.

"They are so eager to control the public damage from this absurd decision to derecognize a group that has been serving the public for 30 years, that they just jumped the gun," said David French, director of the Alliance Defense Fund's Center for Academic Freedom. "It's just astonishing." [snip] Duluth NewsTribune

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