After more than 200 years, (and two years of internal meetings, creation of a taskforce, and amendments and compromises) Carroll College in Helena appears to have taken a pretty tiny step forward toward recognizing the existence of the first amendment.
The "change" was reported in the Carroll College student newspaper "The Prospector" [Volume 92 Edition 3, December 11, 2008](not available online), Carroll now has a "Policy for External Speaker Events When the Public is Invited" (emphasis mine, also below):
"Members of the college community must be free to engage the full range of views on a variety of subjects. Even unwelcome or controversial views need to be heard, discussed and analyzed," the documents introduction reads.
"In extending such invitations, however, members of the college community have an obligation to respect the special aims and objectives of Carroll College as described in the statement of mission."
As a Catholic college, Carroll is obligated to treat judgments concerning ultimate reality and decisions concerning ultimate value at both an academic and a pastoral level. This obligation involves the College's relationship to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, defined as "the perennial, authentic, and infallible teaching office committed to the Apostles by Christ and now possessed and exercised by their legitimate successors, the college of bishops in union with the pope."
