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Counseling student can sue university

January 31, 2012 By 7 Comments

A conservative Christian, Julea Ward was expelled from a master’s program in counseling because she referred a gay client who wanted to discuss his orientation to another counselor. Ward said she couldn’t be supportive.  When Eastern Michigan University kicked her out of the program for anti-gay bias, she sued, charging religious bias and infringement of her free-speech rights. Ward’s suit was revived by a federal appeals court, which threw out a summary judgment, reports Education Week.

“Although the university submits it dismissed Ward from the program because her request for a referral violated the ACA code of ethics, a reasonable jury could find otherwise — that the code of ethics contains no such bar and that the university deployed it as a pretext for punishing Ward’s religious views and speech,” Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton wrote for the panel. “What exactly did Ward do wrong in making the referral request?” Sutton added. “If one thing is clear after three years of classes, it is that Ward is acutely aware of her own values. The point of the referral request was to avoid imposing her values on gay and lesbian clients.”

If a counselor disapproved of my lifestyle or beliefs, I’d prefer a referral to a pretense of support.

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Anti-bullying bullies attack free speech

January 21, 2012 By

A debate on gay adoption in a Wisconsin school newspaper turned into a lesson on the dangers of anti-bullying over-reach, writes Eugene Volokh.

The Shawano High School newspaper decided to run dueling student opinion pieces on whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt children; the student article that answered the question “no” said, among other things, quotes Leviticus 20:13 (“If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.”). The school district then publicly apologized for the column, as an “[o]ffensive article[] cultivating a negative environment of disrespect,” and said that it is “taking steps to prevent items of this nature from happening in the future.” And in a Fox interview, the school superintendent labeled the column a form of “bullying.”

Public schools can decide to control what’s published in student newspapers, writes Volokh, a law professor.   But labeling a student’s opinion as “bullying” is troubling. Under district policy, “bullying” may lead to “warning, suspension, exclusion, pre-expulsion, expulsion, transfer, remediation, termination, or discharge.”

The Shawano incident shows how easy it is for schools to define “bullying” to include “political advocacy and expression of religious views,” Volokh writes.

Schools and anti-bullying activists have adopted “overbroad definitions of bullying,” argues Hans Bader on Open Market. When “eye-rolling” can be defined as bullying, the First Amendment is in trouble, he writes.

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Cyberbullying or free speech?

January 17, 2012 By

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear three cases involving students suspended for malicious online comments.

School boards and principals had hoped for guidance on the clash between free speech and civility, reports the LA Times.

A middle school principal in northeastern Pennsylvania was shocked to see his photo online along with a description of him as a “hairy sex addict” and a “pervert” who liked “hitting on students” in his office.

A high school principal north of Pittsburgh saw a MySpace profile of himself that called him a “big fag,” a “whore” and a drug user.

And in West Virginia, a school principal found out that a girl had created an online site to maliciously mock another girl as a “slut” with herpes.

All three students were suspended and filed suit, claiming their free speech rights had been abridged. The two students who charged their principals with misconduct won in the lower courts. The girl who mocked a classmate lost.

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‘Harassment’ rules threaten free speech

January 9, 2012 By

“Overly broad harassment codes remain the weapon of choice on campus to punish speech that administrators dislike,” writes Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, in the Washington Post op-ed.

In a decade fighting campus censorship, I have seen harassment defined as expressions as mild as “inappropriately directed laughter” and used to police students for references to a student government candidate as a “jerk and a fool” (at the University of Central Florida in 2006) and a factually verifiable if unflattering piece on Islamic extremism in a conservative student magazine (at Tufts University in 2007). Other examples abound. Worryingly, such broad codes and heavy-handed enforcement are teaching a generation of students that it may be safer to keep their mouths shut when important or controversial issues arise. Such illiberal lessons on how to live in a free society are poison to freewheeling debate and thought experimentation and, therefore, to the innovative thinking that both higher education and our democracy need.

In April, the Office of Civil Rights told colleges to use “the lowest possible standard of evidence” in sexual harassment and assault cases, Lukianoff writes. “The letter makes no mention of the First Amendment or free speech.”

In the 1999 case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court defined harassment as discriminatory conduct, directed at an individual, that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that “victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.” FIRE and other groups want OCR to adopt the Davis definition of harassment.

 

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Muslim students force out religion prof

December 15, 2011 By

Muslim students disrupted a world religion class and told classmates to be “scared,”  says the adjunct professor, who resigned in protest when Tarrant County College officials sided with two Muslims in the class. A Baptist, Paul Derengowski is biased against Islam — and most other religions.

Also on Community College Spotlight: There are well-paid, blue-collar jobs out there, but Joe Six-Pack needs training and skills to qualify.

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Teen tweeter won’t apologize to governor

November 29, 2011 By

An 18-year-old student won’t apologize for a rude tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, despite her high school principal’s demand. Emma Sullivan said she isn’t sorry.

As the governor greeted Youth in Government participants in Topeka last week, Sullivan tweeted:  “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person (hash)heblowsalot.”

She actually made no such comment and said she was “just joking with friends.” But Brownback’s office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor’s name, saw Sullivan’s post and contacted the Youth in Government program.

Which sounds awfully petty.

YiG contacted Sullivan’s principal, who gave her talking points for a written apology. It’s not clear if her refusal to apologize will have consequences. (Update: The governor has apologized for his staff’s overreaction, reaffirming his support for free speech, and the principal has backed down as well.)

Sullivan said she disagrees with Brownback politically, particularly his decision to veto the Kansas Arts Commission’s entire budget, making Kansas the only state in the nation to eliminate arts funding. Brownback has argued arts programs can flourish with private dollars and that state funds should go to core government functions, such as education and social services.

“I raised my kids to be independent, to be strong, to be free thinkers. If she wants to tweet her opinion about Gov. Brownback, I say for her to go for it and I stand totally behind her,” said Julie Sullivan, the student’s mother.

 

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Judge tells ‘spoiled kids’ to respect administrators

November 18, 2011 By

“Spoiled and coddled” students with “excessive self-esteem” should “learn to roll with the punches” when faced with offensive political or religious messages, said Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Chicago in a recent speech, reports Ed Week‘s School Law Blog. Courts should defer more to school administrators’ judgment, Posner told the national conference of the Education Law Association.

Some school litigation is caused by “hypersensitive” students with “aggressive” parents, the judge said.

“It seems to me you have to take a certain amount of buffeting to live in society,” said Posner, who recounted that in the early 1960s he took the bar exam in a room at Fordham University, a Roman Catholic institution in New York City, where he was greeted by a large crucifix.It was a “sad-looking Jesus Christ,” said Posner, a graduate of Harvard Law School. “What do you expect? It’s a crucifixion. He’s looking down on us balefully. I’m not religious. Some people would be offended: ‘This is a secular activity, what are they doing confronting us with this?’ I think people should roll with those particular punches.”

However, Posner ruled against school administrators who banned high school students from wearing  T-shirts that said “Be Happy, Not Gay.”

“First of all, these are high school seniors,” Posner said in his speech last week. “Since they have to form political opinions, they ought to be exposed to diversity of thought. … I think it is problematic for schools to try to suppress criticism of homosexuality.”

Also, school administrators’ arguments that the “Be Happy” shirts were a form of bullying were not backed by any hard evidence, the judge said.

On the flip side, the judge ruled against a group of gifted 8th graders at a Chicago magnet school who wanted to wear T-shirts calling their classmates “tards,” short for “retards.”

In his speech, Posner called for “a high standard for (free-speech) suits by schoolchildren against schools.”

 

 

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Part-timers could lose Pell aid

October 5, 2011 By

Part-time students would lose eligibility for Pell Grants under a bill proposed by House Republicans. 

Also on Community College Spotlight:  An allegedly racist cartoon has stirred controversy at a California community college.

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Idiocy implodes

October 5, 2011 By

After threatening a professor with disorderly conduct charges for Firefly and anti-fascism posters on his office door, administrators at the University of Wisconsin at Stout have backed down, reports FIRE.  Free speech is an important value, said the administrators in an e-mail.

It is important to note that the posters were not removed to censor the  professor in question. Rather, they were removed out of legitimate  concern for the violent messages contained in each poster and the belief  that the posters ran counter to our primary mission to provide a campus  that is welcoming, safe and secure.

In retrospect, however, it is clear that the removal of the posters -  although done with the best intent – did have the effect of casting  doubt on UW-Stout’s dedication to the principles embodied in the First  Amendment, especially the ability to express oneself freely.

UW-Stout will let Professor James Miller display his posters and will review procedures for “handling these  kinds of cases.”

Among those protesting the decision was actor Adam Baldwin, one of the stars of Firefly, who’d asked Miller if he knew of other  “violent” posters on campus. UW-Stout tolerated numerous ”Kill the Bill” posters — a take-off on the movie Kill Bill – as part of a campus-wide protest held in February against Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill.

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Warning: Idiocy at UW-Stout

September 29, 2011 By

A professor’s posters that call for fighting fair and warn of fascism aren’t protected by free-speech rights, claims the chancellor of University of Wisconsin-Stout (UWS).

James Miller, a theater professor, started with a poster featuring a line from the TV series Firefly. The sci-fi space pilot played by Nathan Fillion says: “You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.” 

A literate person would read the message: I fight fair.

Campus police removed the poster because it “refer[s] to killing” and “can be interpreted as a threat,”  reports Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). When Miller asked for respect for his First Amendment rights, the police chief responded: “If you choose to repost the article or something similar to it, it will be removed and you could face charges of disorderly conduct.”

Miller put up a “Warning: Fascism” poster. “Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets.”

A literate person would read the message: Fascism is bad because it leads to violence, which is bad.

Campus police removed it because it “depicts violence and mentions violence and death” and could “be constituted as a threat,” according to the university’s “threat assessment team.”

Despite FIRE’s publicity campaign, which lead to a wave of ridicule, Chancellor Charles Sorensen, Provost Julie Furst-Bowe and Vice Chancellor Ed Nieskes defended censorship in an e-mail to faculty and staff, claiming the posters “constituted an implied threat of violence.”

This was not an act of censorship.  This was an act of sensitivity to and care for our shared community, and was intended to maintain a campus climate in which everyone can feel welcome, safe and secure.

Everyone can feel welcome, safe and secure except for people who like to express their opinions.

The university administration’s idiocy boggles the mind.

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