UPDATE: Liberty University Democratic club working to regain status

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Updated 3:52 p.m.:

After meeting with Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. today, members of Liberty University's Campus Democrats club said they are developing a proposal that would let the club regain officially recognized status while promoting a pro-life agenda.

The club also is drafting an apology to the school and a retraction of some statements it made to the news media last week after the university revoked the club's official recognition.

Maria Childress, the club's staff adviser, said Falwell and other administrators criticized the club for its comments to the news media. A meeting of club representatives and university administrators lasted almost two hours today.

The retraction and apology probably will come within 48 hours, and members are deciding what to say in the statement, Childress said.

The club is expected to retract a statement that accused university administrator Mark Hine of saying a person could not be both a Democrat and a Christian, Childress said.

Childress said today's meeting cleared up many misunderstandings about what transpired as a result of the club's losing its official status at LU.

"It was a productive meeting in that manner and we were able to clear up some of the issues," Childress said.

Earlier:

Members of Liberty University’s once-recognized College Democrats club say they hope a meeting today with Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. will lead to their reinstatement as an accepted campus group.

Falwell said the club would need to align itself with a pro-life wing of the Democratic Party before Liberty could restore privileges, such as use of formal meeting rooms and the university logo on its communications.

But even without those privileges, the club members can meet informally in “common areas” such as the student center or cafeteria, Falwell said Tuesday.

“No policeman would be running up and saying, ‘you have to stop meeting, you’re a Democratic club,’” if a group were to gather in the student center, Falwell said.

The meeting-on-campus issue seemed to revolve around how strictly the university applies its conduct code for unofficial clubs.

Mark Hine, Liberty’s vice president of student affairs, said he met last week with one of the College Democrats’ officers and also its staff adviser. They discussed an e-mail Hine had sent to notify club members that the university was revoking its one-year recognition of the Democratic club.

Liberty revoked its recognition of College Democrats because members supported the party’s platform and candidates who were pro-choice on abortion.

Although the e-mail quoted an LU conduct code that says unapproved clubs were not “permitted to meet on campus,” Hine said he made it clear in the meeting with staff adviser Maria Childress and club officer Jan Dervish that meetings were not being prohibited.

“I made every attempt to make it clear how we should interpret what was being said” in the e-mail, Hine said. “In all my years at Liberty, I’ve never seen a student group approached and thrown out of a room because they were having a discussion that doesn’t meet with university approval.

“That hasn’t occurred and won’t occur,” Hine said.

Childress and Dervish said they left the meeting with the impression that the club would not be allowed to meet on campus.

Hine said a misunderstanding could have persisted because “I was not bringing them great news,” but during the meeting he mentioned places on campus where the College Democrats could hold meetings.

“Hopefully we can hammer some of this out” in today’s meeting, Hine said.

Falwell said he sent e-mails to several students over the weekend telling them the Democratic club could still meet on campus, provided it did not use the university’s name as part of its identity.

Only one student replied to the e-mail, Falwell said, so he included the free-meetings assurance in his comments to the news media as well, hoping to reach the club members that way.

“We’ll make that clear in the meeting” today, Falwell said.

The chancellor also said Democratic clubs have existed on campus without formal recognition for most of the university’s 37 years.

“We have plenty of unendorsed, unrecognized groups on campus that have nowhere else to meet” except in a common area or unused classroom, Falwell said. Hine said study groups often meet in such locations.

Discussions continued Tuesday about Democratic Party factions that might be acceptable to Liberty administrators.

Childress said she and some club members had discussions on Facebook with Virginia Democrats for Life, a group of Democrats who oppose abortion. Gregory McKinney, a board member for the group, said it’s just getting started in Virginia and hopes to organize chapters on three or four campuses starting next fall.

Childress said the College Democrats also were thinking about another group known as Faithful Democrats, which describes itself as “a Christian-focused Democratic community online,” that is associated with the national party.