A Virginia public university absorbed Christian student groups into its taxpayer-funded campus ministry while leaving the Muslim Students Association free as a registered organization, a lawsuit alleges.
Virginia State University stripped two Christian campus chapters of registered student organization status and folded them into Campus Ministries under an Aug. 6 policy, according to a First Amendment lawsuit reported by Just the News.
The suit says Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship lost the right to affiliate with their national organizations. Campus Minister Thomas Wynn now holds complete discretion over their activities. The Muslim Students Association, the non-Christian VSU Community Faith Alliance, and secular groups kept their independent status and benefits.
Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the Christian groups. The complaint argues the state school preferred some faiths and secular outfits over Christian ones and put government control over basic religious life on campus.
The lawsuit puts the claim in plain terms:
"The government cannot prefer Muslim and secular groups over Christian groups, cannot dictate to Christian groups how to worship, and cannot strip Christian groups of benefits for what they believe and for what they say"
Under the Aug. 6 policy, Christian student leaders must get university approval before ordinary ministry work. That includes a prayer night, a Bible study, fundraising, inviting a classmate to church, hosting a guest speaker, or even a pajama party in a residence hall.
Wynn can withhold that approval with what the suit calls unbridled discretion. The Christian groups were also placed under a Board of Advisors that includes faculty, public safety, facility quality assurance, and the president’s deputy chief of staff.
The policy banned free shuttles from a local church for Sunday services. Registered student organization status still brings real benefits to groups the policy left alone: help with event and strategic planning, meeting space, promotional opportunities, online space reservations, leadership trainings, and a slot in Org Bazaar during homecoming week.
Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship lost that pathway. The Muslim Students Association did not.
On Aug. 19, Wynn met with Christian student organization leaders to explain the change. A 100-plus-page transcript of that meeting is attached to the litigation materials.
Wynn said the covered groups were included “because you purport Jesus Christ and faith.” He described the move as being “for the benefit of the university,” adding, “It’s realignment. It ain’t persecution.”
He also said, “The King of Kings is telling us what to do.”
In the same session, Wynn called Muslims an “underserved demographic” who need “more equal footing and a voice on campus,” while also saying Muslims are “higher up” in the administration, either in or “close to” the president’s office. He said a Hindu or Buddhist group would be handled “case by case” because those faiths, like Islam, are “minority” religions.
Wynn drew a line between “avid followers of Jesus” like himself and Christians as a broader group, whom he said “kill people” and “burn crosses.” He warned he would have “total issue with BCF if they were to come and try to give a legal argument,” and the lawsuit says he framed a court challenge as sinful and unchristian.
An unidentified speaker at the meeting asked the obvious question for a public university:
"Does the university, this being a state university, understand how this can be considered discriminatory?"
Wynn also told the students they could no longer “just get the homies together” to pray on a whim. “There’s a process for everything, so everything your ministry does... we have to make [a] record.”
He later scolded Women of Victory over an informal “pajama party” gathering in a common area over Labor Day weekend.
ADF senior counsel Tyson Langhofer is handling the case for the two chapters. He said the constitutional line is not complicated.
"The First Amendment clearly establishes the right of all student organizations to associate around shared beliefs"
The complaint asserts violations of five clauses in the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Virginia State University is a public institution in the Richmond area, described as America’s first fully state-supported four-year college for Black students. That status makes the viewpoint sorting a government act, not a private club decision.
Neither the university nor Wynn answered questions from Just the News. Wynn also serves as senior pastor of Lebanon United Methodist Church and as youth coordinator for the Living Waters District of the Virginia United Methodist conference.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression gives Virginia State University its worst free speech rating. FIRE last reviewed the school’s policies in May and flagged three rules tied to the student organization handbook. The school has twice been singled out in FIRE’s “speech code of the month.”
FIRE’s 20th annual report, released last month, found a record-low 13.2% of nearly 500 rated schools earned that bottom “red light” mark. Red-light schools had also increased in the 2022 and 2024 reports.
FIRE and ADF are backing federal legislation that would change the financial stakes when colleges violate First Amendment rights or contractually promised free-speech protections, including easier recovery of attorney’s fees if a school walks back a challenged policy after being sued.
A separate case at private Whitman College, where student government rejected a Republican club, drew a FIRE rebuke that “This is what happens when a college doesn’t play by its own rules.” The Whitman club later decided against reapplying. VSU’s dispute is different in kind: it is a state university using policy to restructure only Christian student ministries while other faith and secular groups keep registered status.
The suit’s theory is straightforward. A public campus may not hand one set of religious students a ministry office with veto power and a multi-office board, then leave a Muslim student group and secular organizations on the normal registered track with facilities, promotion, and homecoming access.
It also may not ban church shuttles for Sunday worship, block national affiliation for Christian chapters, and force every prayer meeting through a campus minister who says the King of Kings is directing the realignment.
Taxpayers fund Virginia State University. Students who want to gather around shared Christian beliefs are now told the government keeps the calendar, the record, and the stamp of approval. Students in the Muslim Students Association, under the same school’s alleged policy, are not.
Equal rules for every student group is not persecution. Preferential control over Christian worship on a public campus is exactly the kind of sorting the First Amendment was written to stop.
