student who refused to support gay adoptions sues university

[proud2BlibKansan]

Missouri St. sued by student who refused to support gay adoptions
Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - A Missouri State University graduate has sued the school, claiming she was retaliated against because she refused to support homosexual adoption as part of a class project.

Emily Brooker's federal lawsuit, filed on her behalf Monday by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, claims the retaliation against her Christian beliefs violated her First Amendment right to free speech.

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In the complaint, Brooker said she was accused of violating the school's Standards of Essential Functioning in Social Work Education.

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French said Brooker was called before the ethics committee because she complained about Kauffman to her adviser and challenged a grade she had received in another Kauffman class. Kauffman allegedly said Brooker was often late to class and didn't participate in class discussions.

more . . .
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/15902631.htm

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I wonder how she will be as a Social Worker, dealing with some of the

situations involving child abuse by some of her fellow Christians. Will she represent the child's best interests or the parents' right to follow ancient Biblical rules, such as beating the kid or even stoning him to death?

[WinkyDink]

12. Those aren't Christian precepts. The New, to a Christian, supercedes the Old.

[badgerpup]

2. Is it just me, or does this remind you of the pharmacists....

who won't dispense certain scripts because it's against their religious beliefs?

"Social Services, may I help you...but only if you're Christian and buy into my belief structure otherwise you're shitouttaluck?"

Seriously, if she canNOT separate her personal belief from work ethics, she needs to be in another field.

HEY!!! THIS IS MY 1000th post!!!
:bounce: :toast: :woohoo::party:

Have I ever mentioned I think y'all are GREAT PEOPLE! :loveya: :grouphug:

[donco6]

4. That was the first thing I thought of.

So will she dispense "biblical" advice to her clients (women be submissive to your husbands - even when they beat you)?

Blech.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. That's why I posted it.

Why would someone like this even want to be a social worker? Perhaps she thinks she can spread the word of the Lord to her clients??

[baldguy]

3. Misleading headline

She's suing because she refused to do the required coursework, and therefore got a poor grade.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Yes but she refused to do the coursework because

she opposes gay adoptions.

[baldguy]

10. Then she shouldn't have enrolled in the course.

She's entitled to her beliefs, but the instructor & the school determine the curriculum. She didn't do the work, she isn't entitled to credit for the course.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I agree

Sounds like she would make a lousy social worker anyway. She doesn't seem too tolerant.

[RedStateShame]

7. Somewhere, a home school is missing its star pupil.

[kestrel91316]

8. You are SOOOO right!!!!!!!!!

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. She needs to be working on a home college degree

[StraightDope]

17. One more post and you'l be at 1000 RedStateShame...

Make it a good one!

[SalmonChantedEvening]

13. I smell Wholly Without Merit!!

Or maybe she thinks she can pay off her student loans this way.

[dsc]

14. They had no business making her sign a letter to her legislator

I have no problem with making her sign a contract to abide by the standards of social workers. I have a big problem with forcing people to author letters to their legislators advocating a particular point of view, even if I happen to like the point of view. I see no merit whatsoever in that assignment.

[MadHound]

16. I have a hard time actually believing that would happen

In any university, and especially at Missouri St. I went to that school for awhile, back when it was SW Missouri State, and it is a very conservative school. I find it hard to believe that any faculty or department there would touch the issue of gay adoption, much less force a student to sign a letter in support of it. This is, after all, Ashcroft country. Very religious, very conservative, very non-contraversial.

What I'm suspecting happened is that this woman was, for whatever reason, doing poorly in class, and wanted to bring her grades up without doing the work. I wouldn't be suprised if this case is laughed out of court in the near future.

[dsc]

19. I am referring to this paragraph of the article

She said one of her professor's, Frank G. Kauffman, accused her of the violation after he assigned a project that required the entire class to write and each sign a letter to the Missouri Legislature in support of homosexual adoption. Brooker said her Christian beliefs required her to refuse to sign the letter.

I don't know if this is true or not since the article never gives the university a chance to directly comment on that.

[MadHound]

20. We're speaking about the same subject

And again, I know this university, its culture, and the culture of the surrounding town. There is no way that a professor at Mo St. would make that sort of assignment, for they know they would be run out of town on a rail, if not shot on sight. No way the university would condone it either, less the townsfolk and students burn the campus down. And if the prof had indeed done this, the University would be hanging him out to dry publicly. That fact that the university isn't doing this tells me that the professor didn't do this, and that this case will be tossed.

I could very well be wrong, but I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that this woman is lying through her teeth.

[dsc]

21. I agree it would be a stupid assignment to make

but also a really stupid lie to tell as it would be easily checked. It does sound bizarre in any case. I would be so fired if I did that.

[MadHound]

25. Mo State students and grads aren't known for their brainpower.

Truly it's a very sad school. I was in my early twenties, stuck there in Springfield and decided hey, let's further my college education! I enrolled and found that the classes were so easy that I could skip about 75% of the time and still pull a 3.75 GPA. It has the rep for being the place that a student can pull up their GPA after they've partied too hard at a real university. Sadder yet, there are students who attend who genuinely struggle to pass, and sometimes don't.

[liberalhistorian]

27. Lying in an attempt to avoid

accountability for a poor grade in the class, no doubt, and doing it in a way that she knows will stir up all the stereotypical prejudice against colleges and professors as "too liberal." Sickening.

[MadHound]

28. And that she is trying to smear the "liberal" tag on Mo St. is just laughable

Ashcroft has served on the board there, as have many other conservatives. Robert Heinlein's *really* conservative brother was a prof there. And this is in SW Mo, Ashcroft country:scared:

[liberalhistorian]

23. If that is, indeed, true, then I agree

that that should not have been done at all, you simply cannot use your professional position to force people to sign letters advocating a position that goes against what they believe, I don't care how much I may personally agree with the position or how important it is. You have no right to decide that for others, especially not your students.

IF it's true. IF. I have a really hard time believing in what she's saying. I have never, ever known any professor, liberal or conservative (I had a mix of both in college and paralegal school) to do such a thing, much less base a grade on it. I remember some spirited, sometimes even heated, classroom discussions on certain issues, but never being forced to do something like this. I think I'd like to see ALL the facts from the student, the university and the professor and other students in the class, so that we know what really happened for sure. Somehow, I think the student may be exaggerating a bit. Wouldn't be the first time an unhappy student has done such a thing.

And it was my experience in college that the conservative students were real whiners. Everyone was out to get them, the world was against them, they knew better than anyone else and didn't need to be "enlightened", anytime something bad happened it was because they were conservative and people just didn't want to be "enlightened to the truth" by them, etc., etc., etc.

[Richard Steele]

15. Lawsuit "filed on her behalf by a Christian legal group"....

[Odin2005]

18. Christ, what's next, a creationist sues because he failed a biology course?

:eyes:

[WindRavenX]

22. don't laugh-- it's already happening

:scared:

Can you imagine a day where creationist biologists are taken seriously? Ugh.

[Odin2005]

26. This biology major would rather kill himself...

:puke:

[liberalhistorian]

24. Yuck. the last fucking thing

a social services dept., or a client, needs is a "social worker" like this. Those who cannot separate their personal beliefs from their work and the needs of their clients, and those are usually conservatives, can, and often do, do tremendous damage to their clients, their department, and their profession. While that's true in most jobs and professions, it's ESPECIALLY true in social work. People like this should NOT be social workers, period.

What's she gonna do when dealing with a client whose husband is abusing her and/or her children? Ask her to figure out why she "provokes" him and to "improve" her behavior to appease and submit to him? What about someone who's abusing their child, is she gonna advise him or her on how far the beatings can go before it's biblically considered child abuse? What about an unmarried client with a child/children, is she gonna refuse to do her job unless they get married or try to find a spouse? What about people with drug addictions or alcoholism or AIDS or any other such "undesirable" condition? Is she just gonna lecture and harass them instead of doing her damn job and assist them? And what if a child has been removed from an abusive, neglectful home and desperately needs a stable, caring, loving home, and the only people interested in adopting the child and giving him or her such a home are gay? Is she just gonna let the child languish in the foster care system, being bounced from home to home, doing more and more psychological damage?

All of the above are situations social workers are confronted with daily, and their clients are usually poor, desperate, depressed (maybe even suicidal) and desperately in need of compassion, care, concern and attention. They don't need the kind of shit that social workers such as her are likely to give them. The social work profession itself was created to provide such care, compassion, concern, mercy and assistance to people in all kinds of desperate situations, no matter what the reason for that situation, without hateful judgment and harassment. People like her should NEVER be social workers.