The suit, filed by the UW Roman Catholic Foundation, claims that a university policy discriminates against religious groups.,”

The Catholic group that serves the University of Wisconsin-Madison student population filed a lawsuit earlier this month against University of Wisconsin officials and members of the UW Board of Regents.

The suit, filed by the UW Roman Catholic Foundation, claims that university policy discriminates against religious groups.

The policy says student organizations must agree not to discriminate in their membership on the basis of religion and that the groups receiving funding need to be led by students, according to David Giroux, University of Wisconsin System spokesman.

The Catholic group cannot be recognized as a student group because it does not have enough students in leadership positions and it does not have enough non-Catholic members, according to this policy.

The UW System has an over-arching set of policies but the one being challenged in the lawsuit is a UW-Madison policy, he said.

According to Beth Czarnecki, former student operations officer of UWRCF for two years, the university is discriminating against religious student groups.

According to UW-Madison spokesman John Lucas, the UWRCF has been treated like any other religious group.

For religious groups to be recognized they also must follow the state non-discrimination clause, he said.

"You cannot exclude people of other faiths from membership or leadership," Lucas said.

The UWRCF, according to Czarnecki, does not discriminate on the basis of religion and has in the past had people in leadership roles who were not Catholic.

"Of the registered student religious groups, none have received funding," Czarnecki said. "The only one that has is a Jewish cultural group but that is because they consider themselves a cultural group."

According to Lucas, the group received funding in the past from the Associated Students of Madison, the student government of UW-Madison, because there was "a loophole" that allowed unregistered student organizations to receive funding.

In April 2006, the university chancellor directed the Associated Students of Madison to stop giving money to unregistered groups, which meant that UWRCF would no longer receive funding after the 2006-'07 school year. The Student Services Finance Committee, a subcommittee of the Associated Students of Madison, decided Monday to increase the funding by over $100,000 for the 2007-'08 academic year.

"The first step for UWRCF to begin receiving funding is to get registered," Lucas said.

But the group cannot get registered because it does not have enough students in leadership positions, Lucas said.

"We have 12 members on our board and three of them are students," Czarnecki said. "But we do not feel that having more or less students would impact the decisions of the board."

Czarnecki said she has never seen the UWRCF Board deny student motions.

According to Lucas, UWRCF was told to restructure so more students could be in leadership roles and become recognized but it decided instead to file suit against the school.

According to Czarnecki, the funding requested by the group each year has increased.

"It has risen from $40,000 to $88,000 to $145,000 for the last three years and this year we are requesting $300,000," she said. It also gets other funding from alternative sources such as its annual phonathon and donations from Mass.

The funding goes toward paying the student staff, the full-time staff, programs for students and the maintinance of St. Paul's Catholic Center, she said.

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