Creating Secular Spaces: Religious Threat and the Presence of Secular Student Alliances at US Colleges and Universities¹

Abstract

Why are some US colleges and universities home to secular student organizations whereas others are not? Recent literature suggests that threat can inspire mobilization when groups perceive challenges to their rights or their social standing. Developing the concept of religious threat, I consider whether Secular Student Alliances (the country's largest association of student groups comprised of atheists, agnostics, and other religious skeptics) tend to be located at schools where secular students feel threatened by evangelical Christians. Through a logistic regression analysis of Secular Student Alliance presence across the 1953 4-year, not-forprofit US colleges and universities, I first show that colleges and universities located in states and counties with a high percentage of evangelical Christians, and colleges and universities where activist-oriented evangelical Christian organizations are located, are more likely to be home to Secular Student Alliances. Through qualitative content analyses of 47 Secular Student Alliance newsletters from 2014-2017, I then show that student leaders indeed frame their groups as a way to counter threats posed by evangelical Christians. The article contributes to social movement theory on the mobilizing effects of threat and represents the most comprehensive study to date of secular student mobilization.

Growing the Green Giant: Ecological Threats, Political Threats, and U.S. Membership in Sierra Club, 1892–Present

“…Our analysis holds implications for the growing body of research on the role of threat in mobilization (Adler et al 2014;Almeida 2003Almeida , 2019Bergstrand and Robertson 2020;Coley 2021;Crockett and Kane 2012;Dodson 2016;Einwohner 2003;Gillham et al 2019;Johnson and Frickel 2011;Maher 2010;Martin and Dixon 2010;McKane and McCammon 2018;Owens et al 2015;Shriver et al 2021;Van Dyke and Soule 2002). Prior research has shown that a variety of threats (including economic, political, religious, moral, and ecological threats) have played a role in the initial formation of social movement or advocacy organizations, the growth of social movement or advocacy organization sectors, and individual participation in protests.…”

“…However, a growing body of work highlights the importance of threats-"the probability that existing benefits will be taken away or new harms inflicted if challenging groups fail to act collectively" (Almeida 2003, p. 347)-to mobilization. Threats that have played a role in mobilization include political threats (McKane and McCammon 2018), economic threats (Dodson 2016;Gillham et al 2019), lethal threats (Einwohner 2003;Maher 2010), social threats (Van Dyke and Soule 2002), religious threats (Coley 2021), moral threats (Adler et al 2014;Crockett and Kane 2012), and ecological threats (Johnson and Frickel 2011).…”

“…In some ways, the idea that both opportunities and threats inspire mobilization presents a puzzle: if social movements or advocacy organizations can emerge and grow when a political or social system seems conducive or unconducive to change, does the openness of a system to change have much explanatory power in analyses of mobilization? Social scientists often address this puzzle by arguing that opportunities and threats explain mobilization by different types of groups (see discussion in Coley 2021). Specifically, theories emphasizing opportunities may best explain mobilization by groups that generally lack rights or resources but then begin to perceive opportunities to gain those rights or resources (as in the case of the Southern civil rights movement discussed by McAdam 1982).…”

“…To explain variations in the size of the Sierra Club over time, we draw on theories from the field of social movement studies, particularly theories that focus on the role of threat in mobilization. Specifically, although much early theorizing in social movement studies suggested that activists mobilize when they perceive political opportunities to bring about change (McAdam 1982(McAdam , 1996, recent work in social movement studies suggests that activists also mobilize when they perceive threats either to themselves or to their surroundings (see Adler et al 2014;Almeida 2003Almeida , 2019Bergstrand and Robertson 2020;Coley 2021;Crockett and Kane 2012;Dodson 2016;Einwohner 2003;Gillham et al 2019;Jasper 1997;Johnson and Frickel 2011;Maher 2010;Martin and Dixon 2010;McKane and McCammon 2018;Owens et al 2015;Shriver et al 2021;Van Dyke and Soule 2002). For example, ecological threats, such as declines in wildlife populations and increases in air pollution, were associated with the emergence of new environmental organizations during the last decades of the twentieth century (Johnson and Frickel 2011).…”

Religiously Disaffiliated, Religiously Indifferent, or Believers without Religion? Morphology of the Unaffiliated in Argentina

“…The emerging scenario of institutional 'deregulation' favors both the proliferation of diverse religious options and the spread of "a religiosity that is freed from bonds and loyalties" (Luiz 2013, p. 80). For others, non-religious affiliation is an active way of reaffirming their autonomies, and they engage in groups and organizations with the aim of propagating their views of the world (Smith 2017;Coley 2021). We can also find here another indicator of the cultural diversity of our contemporary life.…”