Law Essays on Bob Jones University v. United States, (1983)
The case present by the Bob Jones university and the court of appeal touches both on the religious and the constitutional statutes. Bob Jones university was accused promoting racial discrimination for which these statutes were deemed to go against the laws that governs the religious and charitable institutions. As it stands, the university was on the claim that interracial marriage was prohibited. This prohibition was on the fundamental interpretation of the constitution. It should be noted therefore that this interpretation went against the constitution of the law of the land. From the fundamental analysis of the constitution, it is important to note that it is the due of the government to protect any race from discrimination at all cost. To the government, all the individuals within its sovereignty are to be treated with high sense of equality. The inception of the constitution is in line with the treatment of all equally. The equal treatment is based on the fact that the constitution is to protect every individual regardless of their race. In accordance with the bible scripture of genesis chapter ten, interracial marriages are prohibited in various contexts. In the current context of biblical interpretation, fundamentalistic understanding of the bible has been used in most cases to spearhead the conception of racialism. Racialism is one of the basic tenets of discrimination of various groups of people from the female gender to the minority. It is therefore, not accepted in many realms of organizational set ups. The fact that various religious connotations are used to encourage makes it quite controversial. This paper looks into the case between Bob Jones university and the United States Court of Appeal. It looks at the facts and issues surrounding the decision of the court over the case and the arguments postulated by the company University council.
In the case between the Bob Jones university and the united states court of Appeals, the internal revenue services refused to give tax refund to the university owing to the fact that it promoted high sense of racialism between the whites and Negros. This was evident in the fact that they did not allow admission of Negros into the institution on the account that it would encourage the interracial marriages. Additionally, it came out clearly that the institution even after allowing the unmarried Negros to be in the school, they still went ahead to prohibit the notion of interracial marriages. In trying to argue the case, the court of appeal referred to chapter 501 section g subsection 3. This section stated some of the legal connotation of being a charitable or religious organization for the purposes of being exempt from taxation. In this prospect, it came out clearly indeed this institution was encouraging high level of racial discrimination by only allowing the whites and the unmarried Negros in the school while not accepting interracial marriage.
A closer look at the arguments for Bob Jones university for non-acceptance of application of the non-married Negros students, they took this reasoning from the precepts of the biblical scripture which tend to discourage the interracial marriage. In genesis chapter 10, the story of the tower of babel where these people rebelled against God and there was a lot of interracial marriages and every kinds of incest. The fact that God was quite angry with these people until He brought down the tower of babel and scattered them across the world gives us the impression that indeed these groups of people were indeed condemn due to interracial marriages. The main argument for forbidding of the interracial marriage was based on this connotation for Bob Jones university. In this respect, it should be noted that in as much as these were real facts for forbidding the tower of babel, the interpretation of Bible here is quite fundamentalistic in nature. A closer look at the moral effect of this law, it is evident that this law goes against the moral standards of humanity. In Acts chapter 17 verses 26, God describes human beings as those who are united by one blood. Which means that there should be not advent of discrimination. One bold here would mean that we should treat each other equally so as to spearhead the gift of love postulated in Corinthians 12. 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verses 45 also gives a critical connotation that all the human beings all descendants of the first man who is Adam. In this manner, the gospel should be preached to all the tribes and nations without any discrimination. By Bob Jones University forbidding interracial marriages, it sets forth the grounds for racial discrimination since they do not want some sections of the people to listen to the word of God and get some fundamental teaching of the same. I tend to believe that in this prospect, the institution did not interpret the bible in the most appropriate way. The decision of not admitting a section of Negros into the school goes against the principle of humanity and hence increases the levels of racial discrimination in the united states. the decision of the court of appeal over the reinternment of the revocations was therefore justified in all manner of logic.
Work cited
Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S. Ct. 2017, 76 L. Ed. 2d 157 (1983).