University of Wisconsin System lawyers may now have to defend the constitutionality of UW-Eau Claire's Bible-study ban in court.

Lance Steiger, the same UW-Eau Claire student resident assistant who first appealed to a watchdog group this summer, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Saturday, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated by the university.

The controversy — which State Rep. Rob Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, has said "captured the country's imagination" after first making headlines one month ago — centers around a policy at UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire prohibiting resident assistants from conducting Bible studies in university residence halls.

"Do I support Lance's court initiative? Absolutely," State Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said. "It's Lance's right because he feels like many of us do that he was wronged. We feel it was a very discriminatory policy that has certainly affected Lance both personally and professionally."

Suder is among several state politicians and UW professors who, over the past few weeks, speculated it was only a matter of time before UW was hit with a lawsuit.

"It's unfortunate," Suder said. "It's unnecessary, and it's going to be costing taxpayers a lot of money."

Supporting Steiger in his most recent endeavor is the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization devoted to "the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense and advocacy of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and traditional family values."

"Essentially the university is saying that, if you're a student dorm leader and you're not being disruptive, you can hold a 'kegger,' but you can't hold a Bible study," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Kevin Theriot, one of the attorneys in the case, said in a release. "This incredibly broad restriction on all RA speech seems to have been applied solely to religious speech in yet another example of political correctness run amok."

Although UW-Eau Claire suspended its policy shortly after Steiger filed the case, ADF lawyers say they will proceed with the lawsuit until they are satisfied the UW System's new universal code falls within its expectations.

"No official position of the university has changed," Theriot said. "Our lawsuit will proceed until it's clear that the constitutional rights of students will be respected."

Whereas UWEC agreed to cease enforcing its beleaguered policy Wednesday, UW-Madison has no plans to back down, an assessment supported by UW-Madison College Democrats Chair Brian Shactman.

"There is a separation of church and state for a reason," Shactman said. "I'm somebody who is religious, but I would never force that on somebody else."

And it now appears UW System President Kevin Reilly's new committee of campus student-life experts has failed to impress a few of UW's conservative critics.

The committee, which would write a system-wide Bible-study policy, will be named Dec. 9.

While U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., called Reilly's suggestion a "goofy idea," both Suder and the ADF ripped his latest move.

"It shouldn't take a committee to decide whether to respect the First Amendment rights of students," Theriot said.

Meanwhile, Suder characterized the committee as a delay tactic.

"[I']'m not sure what part of 'unconstitutional' the UW System doesn't understand," he said. "It's a delay tactic, and I think it's unacceptable."