Public college and university campuses continue to provide grist for First Amendment lawsuits involving free speech and the freedom of religion. Two important cases currently being handled by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) serve as reminders that Christian clubs on many campuses are discriminated against because of their beliefs, and free speech can’t be relegated to tiny free speech zones.

In Texas, ADF represents Ratio Christi, a national Christian organization with student chapters on many college campuses. The organization believes in using apologetics and rational discourse to introduce Christ to nonbelievers. Unsurprisingly, it also requires its campus student leaders to be Christians and adhere to a statement of faith and conduct.

However, Ratio Christi has run into opposition to that requirement at a couple of campuses, first in Colorado and of late, in Texas. The group’s experience mirrors other Christian clubs on public campuses. Scriptural mandates regarding marriage and sexuality are flagged on secular campuses as objectionable requirements for leadership because they allegedly violate campus nondiscrimination policies that apply to a number of protected classes, including homosexuality and gender identity.

Four-time Team USA Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor just won her fourth Olympic medal in bobsledding – her first since becoming a mother and dedicated her win to her infant son, Nico, who has Down syndrome.

As a four-time Olympic medalist, Meyers Taylor has the most medals in US bobsled history and is tied for the sixth most medals in US Winter Olympic history!

In these Olympic games, Meyers Taylor has made it her mission to encourage other female athletes that they can have children while still pursuing their dreams.

Prior to the Olympics, the 37-year-old mother shared on Instagram that even though she didn’t know how the Olympics would turn out that she wanted to show, “It’s possible to have a baby and come back from pregnancy and continue competing. It’s possible to do extended breastfeeding and physically perform better than most in the works. It’s possible to travel the world with your family, including a baby, and win races. It’s possible to parent a child with special needs and continue to chase your dreams. It’s not easy – there’s definitely moments of doubt and extreme highs and lows – but it’s possible.”

Do you have goals and a plan in place to pursue them?

That was pretty much what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., asked an auditorium full of Philadelphia junior high students back in October of 1967 – just six months before he was assassinated on a Memphis motel balcony in April of 1968. “What you do now and what you decide now at this age may well determine which way your life shall go,” he told those assembled inside Barrett Junior High School.

In the midst of Black History Month, I recently came across this moving address, and was impressed with both its poignancy and practicality. Many of us are familiar with Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech – but the idea of the famed civil rights leader spending time with the next generation can and should still inspire all of us.

Although offered almost 55 years ago, Dr. King could have been addressing the radical forces of the last few years that destroyed property and sowed chaos in American cities:

“Our slogan must not be ‘Burn, baby, burn,’ it must be ‘Build, baby, build,’” he warned. “Organize, baby, organize. Yes, our slogan must be ‘Learn, baby, learn’ so that we can earn, baby, earn.’”