"The Massachusetts ACLU says that the threat of disciplinary action by BC is a potential infringement on the students’ civil rights. The ACLU may indeed take legal action: just because the school is a private institution does not give it the right to, in effect, do whatever it wants. In the
Boston Globe, Sarah Wunsch, staff lawyer at the *ACLU of Massachusetts, cites the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act of 1979, which does not allow private and public entities to interfere with an individual’s civil rights.
BC and other Catholic universities indeed note that the prohibition against students handing out condoms on campus is “not specifically outlined in a written policy.” But they claim that “student groups are well aware that they are prohibited from distributing birth control on campus” because such an activity runs “counter to Catholic beliefs.”"
The students are safe. If they are paid tuition and recourse for some action that isn't outlined is taken anywhere, then the school will be subject to much liability concerning the money invested into a school. You can't accept students, than then half way through their degree, add rules or changes rules in the publication you have already provided (by the way, students are projected from changes in their program.. If I start school in 2014, and new projects come out every year, I stay with my 2014 program until 2018, by law). So there is actual no legal agreement to said rule, which is rather arbitrary. Even if this wasn't the case, this probably falls under civil rights, the right to petition and demonstrate, which holds on all public and private college campuses.