c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) An evangelist who was once asked to leave the University of New Orleans for distributing controversial religious material has dropped her lawsuit against the school after it adopted a policy that permits her to resume her work.

Michelle Beadle, who describes herself as a Jew who believes in the divinity of Christ, sued the university in July 2003. Some months earlier, a staff member asked her to leave while she was passing out religious literature that said “Jews should believe in Jesus.”

Beadle is a missionary for the Christian Jew Foundation Ministries, which has its national headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. The organization’s aim, according to its Web site, is to “reach Jewish people with the Gospel of Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah.”

The group and others like it across the country are composed in large part of people like Beadle _ Jews who have converted to Christianity, but who seek to maintain their Jewish ethnic and cultural identity. In many parts of the country, such groups are focused on reaching out to other Jews, although they also welcome gentiles attracted to Christianity as seen through Jewish culture.

Mainstream rabbis and Jewish groups strongly condemn Messianic Judaism. Most say it is impossible to claim Jewish identity while believing in Jesus Christ. Many are offended by what they believe is Messianic Jews’ misappropriation of Jewish identity to facilitate their missionary outreach to Jews.

Beadle also evangelizes at Tulane University, although she confines herself to the public property along Freret Street, which cuts through the campus, she said. She leads a Bible study for a handful of Christians and Jews who have organized a small fellowship of believers, she said.

Beadle said she was talking with students and handing out literature near the University of New Orleans’ library in October 2002 when a university staff member told her that her message was potentially offensive and asked that she leave.

When she later asked in writing to return, the university denied her permission to distribute one of her tracts, in part because its message “could be offensive to some people,” the university said in its reply.

In time, Beadle sued with the assistance of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal advocacy group that specializes in constitutional law.

She sued in part because UNO’s policy on distributing literature required that material be submitted in advance for approval by a university official, who had no guidelines with which to shape a decision.

In the months since the lawsuit, UNO has developed a new “Freedom of Expression Policy.”

While forbidding “unlawful, lewd, vulgar or indecent activities,” it permits the distribution of literature near the student center. Literature may be distributed elsewhere with prior permission, according to the policy.

The new policy “is one of the broadest, if not the broadest freedom of expression policy” found among American universities, said Harry Rosenberg, an attorney for UNO.

The new university policy effectively rendered Beadle’s complaint moot, Rosenberg said.

Beadle said she was frequently back on campus in the past academic year under the new policy.

Beadle said she has secured permission to move around the campus freely with her material. “They’ve been very helpful” in granting her permission, she said.

MO/JL END