(RNS) A federal appeals court has upheld an “open membership” rule for student organizations at a University of California law school, making a Christian student group ineligible for recognition because the group requires adherence to a faith statement and denies membership to gays.

“These conditions on recognition are … viewpoint neutral and reasonable,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a Tuesday (March 17) decision.

The Christian Legal Society at the university’s Hastings College of the Law had sought official recognition (and school funding) as a student organization but was denied because of its membership requirements.

“We certainly believe that the First Amendment rights of the CLS chapter are being violated,” said Timothy Tracey, litigation counsel for the Springfield, Va.- based Christian Legal Society.

Tracey, who said his organization is considering an appeal, is concerned that this case could affect other college groups.

“There may well be universities who decide we can go ahead and de-recognize religious student groups if (those groups) require that their voting members and their leaders agree with their Christian beliefs,” he said.

Nell Newton, chancellor and dean of the law school in San Francisco, said the school’s board of directors determined that the CLS group’s membership rules violated the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

“It seems to me, as somebody who taught constitutional law for 22 years, that the 9th Circuit in our case did exactly the right thing,” she said.

Tracey said he thinks some recognized groups on campus do have certain rules that appear to violate the nondiscrimination policy. Newton responded, “I certainly never saw any such evidence introduced in this case.”

Robert Shibley, vice president of the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said it’s unlikely that other schools will view this decision as a model for how they should treat religious groups because the opinion was declared “not appropriate for publication,” or not precedent-setting.

Still, he said the case does differ with two other appellate decisions, one of which sided with a CLS chapter at Southern Illinois University and another which sided with a Christian high school club.

“I would certainly hope that the trend won’t continue this way, and that … religious groups will continue to have the freedom … to make decisions based on their expressive purpose,” he said.