No dice, bbell.

First, the author of the article you cite at NR is senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, so we need to realize this is not a disinterested party reporting the news.

Second, the classes she is required to take before proceeding with her program include include both remedial writing and grammar classes. That’s pretty incredible and embarrassing in a master’s degree program, so I don’t blame Mr. French for not including those facts in his reporting.

Whether Ms. Keeton likes it or not, the profession she has chosen has concluded that homosexuality is complicated and likely has other origins besides individual choice. Her claim that it is ALL individual choice is ridiculous. Jesus never condemned homosexuality but he denounced divorce in the strongest of terms. Keeton presumably has no problem counseling divorced people, in fact marriage counseling will probably be a large part of her practice. Her claims about standing up for biblical morality just don’t hold water.

If a Christian biology student wanted to get an advanced degree from a public university but didn’t want to give up young earth creationism and therefore got kicked out of his program, would you also consider that to be a violation of his constitutional rights and another step down the slippery slope?

In academia (and elsewhere), we call this “jumping through hoops”. You get the degree, and then you can use your professional credential to espouse whatever beliefs you choose to believe. There are a lot of philosophies I’ve encountered in my professional and academic life that I think are total B.S., but until I had a credential to my name, no one was going to listen to me.

As Mark says, if you’re going to attempt to join a profession that institutionally feels a certain way, it’s probably not a wise idea to piss them off off the bat by saying that they are wrong. (Even if you believe they are.)

I’ve been reading up on this — and it sounds to me that she tried to pick a fight over it. If she’s got any case at all, the fine folks at FIRE will be defending her. But the easiest track — one that people have been following for centuries — is to make the professoriate happy, get your credential, and then prove them wrong.

Tolerance and free speech in academia only belong to those with tenure.

No one is denying her free speech. They are denying her the opportunity to get a degree in their field based on her apparent misgivings with the prevailing and dominant findings and philosophies and theories in their field. They won’t prevent her from getting a degree in math with her opinions.

Again, I’m not weighing on the correctness or incorrectness of her opinions. Just on how her chosen profession — and the gate by which she must enter to be credentialed — is going to treat her.

Another thing that people in this profession encounter very often is teenage unwed pregnancies. Do we assume that she will also refuse to deal with people in that situation, since their actions are a choice and also a violation of biblical morality?

I have to agree with queuno in the sense that it sounds like Keeton was picking a fight. Its ok to mention that you personally believe gays can overcome their feelings. It’s not ok to mention it in all your papers, and preach to the student body about it.

It wasn’t her first amendment rights that were being voided, it was the university’s right as an academic location that was being threatened. She can’t assume the college will bend over backwards just to fit her thoughts into an already set system of graduation requirements and public relations.

If anything, I have to assume Keeton wasn’t very well liked by her peers. Especially if her degree emphasizes the importance of non-judgmental counseling.

Here’s the Chronicle of Higher Ed’s coverage: http://chronicle.com/article/Augusta-State-U-Is-Accused-of/123650/

Actually, I’m going to take it a step further: this case reminds me, in a general way, of Christina Axson-Flynn, the former U of U acting student who objected to being forced to say bad words in her classes. So I decided to find the case. You can read it here. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that, although students have First Amendment rights, even public universities can limit what they can say, and even can “require students to express a viewpoint that is not their own in order to teach the students to think critically.” There seem to be two requirements for schools requiring or limiting speech: (a) that there be a pedagogical purpose for it, and (b) that the limitations not be pretextual.

(You’ll notice in the case that the U of U didn’t win; the lack of winning, though, was for procedural, not substantive, reasons: the court held that, on the record, it couldn’t say for sure that the U of U hadn’t required her to use offensive language for pretextual reasons. So there had to be a trial to evaluate the facts. But, based on the law cited by the court, as long as Augusta State can show a pedagogical reason for its requirements and that it didn’t single out Ms. Keeton out of spite, it looks like the school hasn’t violated her Free Speech rights, unless courts in the Eleventh Circuit have established a significantly different set of precedential opinions than courts in the Tenth Circuit.)

bbell,
I skimmed through the complaint; while her complaint is clearly different, the underlying issue seems to me to be fairly similar: in both cases, the public university was requiring students to say things the students didn’t believe, at risk of failing/being kicked out of the program. So it seems to me (and note that I’m a tax guy, not a First Amendment guy, so take whatever I say with that grain of salt) that Augusta State will have to make the same showings that the U of U was required to make, viz. that there was a pedagogical reason for the remediation plan and that they didn’t require the remediation because Ms. Keenan is a Christian (that is, that they’re not picking on her just because of her religion).

So now she’s filed her complaint; the school will then file a response, in which it will present a different set of facts, or the same facts with different context and spin.

And you’ll forgive me if I don’t take the complaint completely seriously: the whole point of a complaint is to present facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. What’s more, she’s being represented by the Allied Defense Fund. In my experience (again, on the tax side), the ADF is less interested with what the law currently is than with what they want it to be. They’re advocates, yes, but they’re also, essentially, lobbyists. So I have trouble accepting their version of the facts.

Basically, this is what I think will happen: she loses, unless she can demonstrate that they came after her with a vendetta for her “Christian” beliefs; if they don’t permit anyone to argue that homosexuality is wrong (or whatever it was she was arguing), they win.

Sam,

Based on some other cases I think she wins in court. If it even gets that far. The last thing the defendants want to do is get in front of a southern jury/or the 10th circuit with a case like this. Esp a jury. They will get killed. The professors lose tenure and are fired. The state legislature intervenes with a new law protecting students from this type of illegal action.

Next week I will post what happened in a similar case in Missouri that ended in favor of the student

Anyone familiar with injunctions in the federal system? I noticed that the Verified Complaint didn’t actually contain plaintiff’s signature, electronic or otherwise. The PDF’s file name suggests that it was a release for the media, but it still should have a /s/ line for Ms. Keeton. Otherwise, if the feds treat it like most state courts do, that injunction will be automatically denied.

Sam, in several high-profile cases over the past 15-20 years, BYU has denied or revoked “continuing status” (the school’s semantic method of denying the protections commonly granted with tenure) of faculty members in several departments, including English, Anthropology, History, Sociology, Philosophy, and Physics. Just two years ago, the school reversed a student’s graduation and denied his diploma, because he had been excommunicated between finishing his degree work and walking through the graduation ceremony. They are even holding any access to his academic records, until their “hold” is released, which evidently will only be done if and when he rejoins the LDS church and remains in good standing therein. There’s a reason, after all, that accreditation bodies have repeatedly raised academic freedom as an area of concern which could threaten future accreditation.

bbell,

If the student wanted to be a religious counselor she should have picked a different program. The point of her program is to train her in the current science of her area of study. If instead of demonstrating that she has mastered the material she decides to contradict the material based on unverifiable claims then she has brought this problem upon herself. I take issue with the fact that the school has given her a remediation program. They should have simply given her failing grades for the work that did not meet standards. She knows what she is doing and so do they. No need to beat around the bush.

Here is something else I just thought of.

Given the location of Augusta State University there is a very high likelihood, approaching 100% certainty, that many of the other students and faculty in Keeton’s program self-identify as Christians. Her claim that the program is hostile to Christian beliefs is a direct slap in the face to these people.

I doubt this will ever come to trial, but if it does I would expect the defense to call other students and faculty as witnesses to testify that it is possible to be a believing, practicing Christian and still complete the requirements of the program.

Another anecdote.

My father taught at an urban, public, state university for almost three decades. He had to confront the creation-evolution question almost every quarter. There was another openly Christian professor who the activists attempted to go after, saying that he was pushing a Christian worldview in his classes — and all based on something he said in a private conversation. However, my father had to confront it head-on in his actual lectures, almost every semester, and he never had any problems. He was very careful to separate religion from science, but never shied away from detailing where they intersected and did not intersect; however, when he was teaching a science class, he taught the science. If someone wanted to know how his faith impacted his view on science, he was careful to indicate that they could discuss that outside the science class (i.e., outside his office door or at the dining hall), that he taught science and not theology or philosophy.

Sometimes it’s all about how you approach the issue.

queuno, I was just having some fun with you. bbell accused me of being mad when I wasn’t, so I just passed it along to you. No harm intended.

Here’s a pretty good article on a similar matter (EMU kicked out a student who refused to counsel a gay student, and the judge sided with the university on the basis that the university has a right to design a curriculum).

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/28/counseling

I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of these issues.

Sorry for screwing up the blockquote. I meant to include this, from the original post, as the “larger issue” being overlooked:

“I am convinced we are on a slippery slope towards society being intolerant in regards to traditional Christian moral teachings”