I have no problem with such a group, but the university system would. Among the requirements to be a student group is a minimal level of organizational leadership structures, usually consisting of 4 persons (president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer). This may vary from one institution to another, but there is always some organizational requirement that must be met to be a student group.

But supposing that the university imposed no requirements on student organizational structures...

Yes.

I have no issue with this.

I have no issue with this.

Oh okay, well then your argument is substantially different than I presumed. As in, I thought there was several comments that implied you thought it was unacceptable to restrict members. I suppose you must have been trying to be descriptive and not normative in those statements. I'm a little surprised the conversation got this far before you made it clear that you are fine with restricting memberships based on religious litmus tests and the like, considering that several posts in a row have been clearly framed as establishing a difference between the member and leadership levels. What I couldn't understand was what your argument was that distinguished between these. However, if you take what I called the "easy libertarian argument" that groups can ban nonreligious members then there is no tension between the argument for the members and the leaders. The flip side is that such arguments aren't likely to be persuasive to people who DO accept that banning certain members is bad.

Well it takes away one way to preserve the integrity of the group. It of course doesn't prevent every action to preserve the integrity of the group.

Thank you for yet another characterization based on psychic projection and byzantine reasoning.

So basically you can't be bothered to stand behind your own explicit statements...

... which you deliver as a response to posts you don't read.

This repeated psychic suggestion is highly amusing to me. I encourage you to keep using it. It's very revealing that you think that responding to things put right in front of me counts as psychic behaviors.

I stand behind it. I'm just using the language of the linked post instead of my own. But if it's really so off-putting for me to use "uncommonly silly" I can use something more like "horrifically shallow."

I don't count this:

as meaningfully addressing the argument in much the same way that this:

does not meaningfully address the argument being made.

Well, as long as you keep telling me what I really mean and what I did or did not do, it will keep on going. I also think that your inability to carry out prolonged debate without use of characterization (such as "silly", "stupid" and "ignorant") are tiresome and overshadows any relevant points you are trying to make.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, the supposed threat of "democratic takeover" is irrelevant as long as one operates an organization with bylaws, which I'm fairly sure most officially recognized student organizations are required to do.

Maybe you should pay more attention to what is written instead of focusing all your effort into how you can write negative characterizations, which I'm certain are uninteresting to anyone but you.

This went on longer than expected, but I think it provides a practical way of avoiding institutionalised discrimination in student groups while allowing any groups to run in practice.

I ran a society in England while I was at University.

For whatever relevance it has, I'll offer briefly what the rules were:

The rules of the society ultimately had to conform to the constitution of the University's Student Union
A society was required to register with the SU in order to gain access to the Union's facilities (rooms, advertising space, storage etc.). These could be gained by any student(s), but societies got priority.
A minimum requirement of president, secretary, treasurer

Our society had a vice-president (which I don't remember being a requirement), and social secretary, which were common positions.

In order to stand for election, a student of the university needed to have been a paid member (£3 for the year for us, some societies were free to join, and the maximum fee was £3.50) at the start of the academic year, receive two nominations, and win an election by a simple majority. RON (re-open nominations) was an option on ballots if no suitable candidate was deemed to be running.

In some societies, it was stipulated that a committee position must have been previously held in order to run for president or a minimum attendance of meetings.

In our society, committee members could call a vote of no confidence on any committee member for any reason, but I don't remember union wide policies.

So no such challenges like in the article ever occurred and I'm not sure how they would've been dealt with. However, groups like the Conservative Society, Labour Society, Muslim Society, Women's society, never raised any contests.

Otherwise, any student could join and run for a position in any society without further stipulation. It would, however, have been completely impractical for me as a gas-guzzler to usurp the Environmental society. Or as an atheist to takeover the Christian society.

If I somehow did achieve it, it would've been done democratically and, given the lack of difficulty in organising a new society, of very little consequence.

The only major inter-society disputes were between us and the rock society fighting over halls and bars. And then one giant ****storm between the Debate society and the Women's society.

To my knowledge (and I might be wrong), student organizations in most US institutions cannot charge membership fees.

Many of the other things you mention are not included in most student organizations such as votes of no confidence and other such procedures are generally absent from bylaws.

If pointing out that you failed to make a successful argument (whether you consider this as something you've done or not done is open for debate) is psychic to you, then so be it.

It didn't help your cause that your opening gambit was to argue against a hypothetical position that nobody took, and when offered a chance to clarify what you mean (in the absence of such characterizations) you doubled down and insisted on your position. I'll requote the exchange for fun:

I think it's silly that you came into the argument fighting hypothetical arguments and not dealing with the issue being raised, you're stupid for trying to argue in such a way, and it makes you look ignorant.

As noted, bylaws often don't have enough information to direct the details of daily operations, and certainly not enough that if someone wanted to mess up the organization that they wouldn't be able to do it.

If what is written deserves negative characterizations, then it gets negative characterizations.

Vintage Aaron.

Fees were set to a pretty low maximum and paid into the union and set aside for that society. That money could then only be accessed by the treasurer or president and used only for the society. Free to join societies still functioned the same. It was pointless to charge people unless you had running costs.

Essentially a society can have its own constitution with whatever laws it wants, unless they contradict the union's constitution. As I said, it never came up, but I think with the amount of anti-discriminatory policies that requiring someone to be anything other than a student with a minimum contribution to the society in question would've been outlawed.

The no confidence, for instance, was written in by previous members.

I realise a lot of this misses out on the large section of the union's constitution, which is why I'd meant to be briefer than I was, but I do think it gives a strong idea of how you can have a multitude of different student organisations dedicated to specific beliefs, ideas, and practices, without having to worry about them breaking some higher discriminatory laws.

I could have spent a year of my time trying to usurp religious groups, but I cant imagine why anyone would go to such lengths to achieve absolutely nothing.

It's not really how people tend to behave. Usurping tends to come from factions within, not someone who perceives your group as an outgroup. The latter would typically prefer intergroup actions.