Thinking Christian

Based on events alleged to have taken place at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia.

DISGUSTA, Ga. — Attorneys with the National Uncivil Liberties League (NULL) filed suit against Disgusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling professor told that her beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The professor, Dr. Julia Charrington, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs to remain on the counseling program’s faculty.

NULL senior attorneys underlined the seriousness of the situation: “Our dearest American liberties are at risk if we won’t let professors impose their anti-religiousness and pro-homosexuality on students against their will.”

Disgusta State ordered Charrington to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will remove her from the Counselor Education faculty.

Other professors learned of Charrington’s views on religion and homosexual conduct, specifically that:

• Homosexuality is an unrestricted good
• Freedom of sexuality trumps freedom of religion
• Sexual behavior is by no means a matter of accountable choice
• Persons are not born male or female; they become that way by of social conditioning; and especially
• Persons who disagree, especially those who disagree for religious reasons, must not be allowed to enter the counseling profession.

“A public university professor shouldn’t be threatened with termination just for insisting that students drop all their moral values and religious beliefs, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said NULL, through a spokesman-woman-person-whose-gender-had-not-been-quite-socially-settled-yet. “Allowing students to hold their own religious beliefs should not be a precondition for employment at a public university. This type of zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop.”

The re-education plan assails Charrington’s beliefs as inconsistent with the counseling profession and expresses suspicion over her  “ability to demonstrate multicultural competence in counseling, particularly with regard to working with non-gay, non-lesbian, non-bisexual, non-transgender, and non-queer/questioning (nGnLnBnTnQ) populations, as well as religious populations.” The plan requires her to take steps to change her beliefs through additional assignments and additional “diversity sensitivity training.” It also orders her to “work to increase exposure and interactions with non-gay populations. One such activity could be attending the Non-Gay Pride Parade in Disgusta.”

In her defense, Charrington offered the example of Augusta State University, also in Georgia, where—allegedly—her beliefs are not only tolerated but actually required. “If what I’ve been hearing is true, Augusta State has a grand tradition of believing what I believe, and even requiring students to believe the same,” she said. “It sounds to me like they’ve set the standard for barring students’ freedom of religion. If it’s true they can do that, then it’s manifestly unfair for Disgusta State not to let me insist that all students here think only the things I say they must think!”

In case you missed it: yes, if reports linked here are true, there is what appears to be a real story behind this satire. Jennifer Keeton’s alleged experience is too similar and yet quite the opposite of the fictional Dr. Charrington’s.

Also at First Things: Evangel

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Religious freedom under assault:

The Peralta Community College District has settled a federal lawsuit over its punishment of two College of Alameda students who were praying on campus. The four-college district will pay $90,000 in legal fees to students Kandy Kyriacou and Ojoma Omaga, who were threatened with suspension after they prayed in class and after Kyriacou prayed with a sick instructor in the teacher’s office….

Public agencies and schools are supposed to remain neutral when it comes to religion, said UC Berkeley law professor Rachel Moran, who is a visiting professor at UC Irvine this year. However, it remains unclear whether that means public schools should be more or less restrictive about allowing prayer on campus, she said.

[From Peralta settles lawsuit over student prayer - San Jose Mercury News]

Speak Up reports that the basis for the students’ suspension had been that they violated policy against

Disruptive or insulting behavior, willful disobedience, habitual profanity or vulgarity, or the open and persistent defiance of the authority of, refusal to comply with directions of, or persistent abuse of, college employees in the performance of their duty . . . .

This was (apparently) the form in which they practiced their “disruption, insulting, willful disobedience, habitual profanity or vulgarity, defiance of authority, and or persistent abuse:”

According to court documents, the students prayed with each other outside of class during class breaks, prayed silently to themselves in class, and on one occasion, engaged in a consensual and student-initiated prayer with an ill faculty member in her office.

More from the court documents:

The events giving rise to this dispute began on November 1, 2007. Kyriacou went to the office of her instructor, Sharon Bell, to discuss matters related to her class. (Bell shared this office with other instructors.) Eventually, their conversation turned to personal matters, and Kyriacou prayed with Bell after obtaining her consent. On December 12, 2007, Kyriacou again went to Bell’s shared office – this time to give her a Christmas gift. Upon learning that Bell was sick, Kyriacou said that she was sorry and offered to pray for Bell. When Bell bowed her head, Kyriacou began praying for her to get well.

While Kyriacou was praying for Bell, defendant Derek Piazza, another instructor, entered the office. Piazza interrupted the prayer, saying, “You can’t be doing that in here!” and Kyriacou ceased praying and left the office. Kyriacou then saw Omaga in the hall and was explaining to her what had happened when Piazza reappeared and said, “You can’t be doing that in there! That’s our office.” Omaga had not been in the office with Kyriacou and Bell, nor did she overhear the initial exchange with Piazza.

On December 22, 2007, both Kyriacou and Omaga received letters from defendant Kerry Compton, the Vice President of Student Services at the College. The letters notified plaintiffs of the College’s intent to suspend them from class, effective December 10, 2007.

Speak Up closes its article on the case,

But what is telling here is how far the College was willing to go to resist clearly protected speech and the reasons for its resistance. Engaging in a year and a half of litigation is not the reaction of a university welcoming of its students’ religious freedoms. Instead, its actions reveal a deep, unsettling hostility to religion that is all too prevalent at America’s institutions of higher education.

The court made the right decision. And yet there is still that chilling question raised by Rachel Moran:

It remains unclear whether that means public schools [note: the context is colleges, not primary or secondary schools] should be more or less restrictive about allowing prayer on campus.

What’s unclear about it?

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