Suing for Jesus: a new legal team wants to cleanse the campuses for Christ.

• Author: Cusac, Anne-Marie
• Position: Alliance Defense Fund

A recent court case at the University of Wisconsin may have big implications for the nation's public schools. Last November, a federal circuit court ruled that students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison should be able to opt out of student-activity fees that support groups whose beliefs they oppose. It is the first federal suit to declare a student-activities fee unconstitutional.

The suit, Southworth vs. Grebe, began when three law students went after the University. But the case quickly became the pet project of a little-known legal outfit of the Christian right, the Alliance Defense Fund. It says it is out "to reclaim legal ground in this country for the body of Christ." Its leaders hope the decision against the University of Wisconsin will set a precedent for public schools around the country. And it may.

In April 1995, Scott Southworth, Amy Schoepke, and Keith Bannach -- all fundamentalist Christians -- sued Michael Grebe, president of the University of Wisconsin's board of regents, along with the other regents. But the plaintiffs were not acting alone. The three were receiving $35,000 in funding from the Alliance Defense Fund, which also recommended a lawyer. The Fund was formed in January 1994 to identify strategic, precedent-setting suits beneficial to the Christian right, and win them.

In newsletters and pamphlets, the Alliance Defense Fund touts its youth and its grassroots funding. But the organization is anything but populist. The Fund has the backing of some of the heaviest hitters in Christian rightdom, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, and Don Wildmon of the American Family Association. The Fund's president, Alan Sears, served as executive director of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese's Commission on Pornography in 1985 and 1986.

According to the conservative magazine Human Events, the Alliance Defense Fund will soon start a National Litigation Academy "to train an army of pro-religious attorneys. The group hopes to train about 200 attorneys a year from every state in the nation."

One such attorney is Jordan Lorence, who represented the plaintiffs in Southworth vs. Grebe. Lorence informs me that he is "a personal friend of Alan Sears." In addition to several stints for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lorence has also worked for what he calls "public-interest law groups" -- specifically Concerned Women for America (an influential Christian right organization), and the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Gary Bauer calls the Alliance Defense Fund "an attempt to level the playing field." With the help of the Fund, the Christian right is quickly becoming effective in court. Out of fifty-three court cases, boasts Sears, the Fund has had forty-seven wins to only six defeats. And the organization has won several times at the Supreme Court level, including cases against the University of Virginia and the Justice Department.

In describing the Fund's purpose, Scott Phillips, the assistant general counsel, recalls a scene from the movie Separate but Equal. The leaders of the early NAACP are sitting down together to chart the court cases the budding civil-rights movement should take on. "They were looking for the best cases out...