Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Augusta State University (ASU) of Georgia was taken to court by a clinical psychology student, Jennifer Keeton, who refused to do coursework necessary for completing her degree. The coursework in question dealt with LGBTQ population. “In her brief, Keeton describes herself as a Christian who is committed to the truth of the Bible, including what she believes are its teachings on human nature, the purpose and meaning of life, and the ethical standards that govern human conduct. She holds several beliefs about homosexuality that she views as arising from her Christian faith. She believes that ‘sexual behavior is the result of personal choice for which individuals are accountable, not inevitable deterministic forces; that gender is fixed and binary (i.e., male or female), not a social construct or personal choice subject to individual change; and that homosexuality is a ‘lifestyle,’ not a ‘state of being.’” ASU’s officials became aware that Keeton held these beliefs when she expressed to professors in class and fellow classmates in and out of class that she believed that the GLBTQ population suffers from identity confusion, and that she intended to attempt to convert students from being homosexual to heterosexual. Keeton also said that it would be difficult for her to work with GLBTQ clients and to separate her views about homosexuality from her clients’ views. Further, in answering a hypothetical posed by a faculty member, Keeton responded that as a high school counselor confronted by a sophomore student in crisis, questioning his sexual orientation, she would tell the student that it was not okay to be gay. Similarly, Keeton told a fellow classmate that, if a client discloses that he is gay, it was her intention to tell the client that his behavior is morally wrong and then try to change the client’s behavior, and if she were unable to help the client change his behavior, she would refer him to someone practicing conversion therapy.” Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 10-13925, D.C. Docket No. 1:10-cv-00099-JRH-WLB (Dec. 16, 2011)
This raises some interesting questions concerning free speech, free exercise and educational and professional accreditation.
Keeton’s stance is not only out of line with the prevailing views of homosexuality as expressed by the American Psychological Association (APA), but it runs afoul of the guidelines set forth in the American Counseling Association’s (ACA) Code of Ethics, which ASU was required to adopt and teach in order to offer a counseling program accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). To resolve this problem, ASU put Keeton into a remediation program before she could participate in the program’s clinical practicum, in which she would have engaged in one-on-one counseling with a student. The remediation plan was to help Keeton learn how to comply with the ACA Code of Ethics and improve her “ability to be a multiculturally competent counselor, particularly with regard to working with [GLBTQ] populations.” Remediation is not a disciplinary action. As one ASU official described it, a remediation plan is “a plan to deal with the professional part of the curriculum that goes across the program, goes across classes. It’s a plan that is devised with students in order to help students to grow professionally in areas of weakness.”
The ASU student handbook states that students can be placed on “remediation status” when a “student’s progress is not satisfactory on interpersonal or professional criteria unrelated to academic performance.” As in Keeton’s case, the student then receives a remediation plan “outlining the faculty’s concerns” and “delineat[ing] what conditions the student must meet to be removed from remediation status.” Keeton was warned that failure to complete the remediation would result in her being dismissed from the program. After agreeing to the remediation, Keeton was allowed to participate in the program’s clinical practicum. Soon thereafter, Keeton withdrew from the clinical practicum, stating, “I am not going to agree to a remediation plan that I already know I won’t be able to successfully complete.”
Rather than complete the remediation so she could complete the required clinical practicum for her degree, Jennifer Keeton filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that requiring her to complete the remediation plan violated her First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights. Keeton also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to prevent ASU’s officials from dismissing her from the program if she did not complete the remediation plan.
The Georgia courts denied her request for preliminary injunction, stating that Keeton had not met the first requirement for granting such an injunction – establishing a substantial likelihood of success on the merits with respect to her free speech and free exercise claims. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed to lower court’s ruling.
The school did not say Keeton could not practice her religion or say what she likes, but rather said that by refusing to treat LGBTQ patients under accepted professional guidelines that she was not fulfilling the educational requirements for the degree she sought. Consider an alternative situation: a geography student who believes in the Flat Earth Theory and refuses to teach anything else as part of their teaching practicum in pursuit of their Ph.D. Surely the school is reasonable in withholding a degree from said person when they allow their personal beliefs to interfere with their course work required for completion of the degree, but especially when said belief contradicts the scientific consensus within the field? Not challenge mind you. Contradict. To challenge a fact is to dispute it as being unjust, invalid, or outmoded. Dispute means to argue to the contrary or alternative. Contradict means to imply the opposite or a denial of fact. When dealing with scientific facts, like any finding of fact, disputing them is part of the fact finding process but it must be based on evidence, not belief. Keeton presented no evidence for her beliefs, only the assertion that because that’s what she believes, it must be true.
Do you think Keeton would have been sanctioned so if she had merely presented her beliefs as an alternative instead of an absolute? Do you think Keeton’s treatment by ASU was fair, both in their administration of policy and adherence to educational standards of the field? Do you think that the court was correct in their finding that Keeton had failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits with respect to her free speech and free exercise claims?
What do you think?
Source(s): Daily Kos, UC-Davis, Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley (.pdf)
Kudo to Otteray Scribe for pointing out this story.
~Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Gene, this is truly an interesting topic and an interesting lawsuit. While we could discuss any number of interrelated issues, what strikes me most about her position is not her religious views, but her failure to distinguish between sexual identity and sexual behavior, a deficiency that she shares with many religious conservatives. Her claim that “sexual behavior is the result of personal choice for which individuals are accountable, not inevitable deterministic forces” is true, but meaningless. The homosexual community has never claimed that gays are not subject to the same standards of ethical conduct as everyone else. The error is in the contention that sexual identity, as opposed to conduct, is a function of choice. It is at this point that Ms. Keeton’s academic position collapses under the weight of science. Your analogy to the flat earth geographer is right on point. Ms. Keeton will lose and will probably regard the result as unjust. Of course, she can always get a job with Marcus Bachmann. He doesn’t have a license either.
Jo
My prayers are with you as well. I am not religious but I do draw strength from the spiritual. May God be with you at this time. If you do not believe in God, know that the good people on this blog are feeling for you.
I notice that it doesn’t matter how many spaces I put in between my sentences here. It always displays as a single space.
Iused 1 after “one space”; 2 after “two space”; 3 after “3 space”; and 22 after “twenty-two” All showed up as single space. So do yours. Is this an offline debate you guys have going?
I usually use one space but now that I hear there is so much contention about the use of an extra space; I think i might give it a try. Open mind; outside the box; etc. Besides; I have no real idea how well or correctly I use puncuation. I’m with Mike; i go with my gut if I’m not sure and I am also not averse to using puntuation in ways I know are incorrect if it conveys my meaning or emotion more clearly.
One space. Two space. Three space skidoo. I couldn’t care less if you use twenty-two. As long as the following sentence makes sense and you don’t run around; mixing your tense.
Jo, she knows you are there with her.
Jo, it is hard and my heart goes out to you. May her passing be easy and the memories be good. She knows you are there with her, and I know you would not be anywhere else.
May she have Godspeed on her journey to forever…
Jo,
What a beautiful tribute to your mother you have given us. Thank you.
Wow. Our prayers are with you Jo.
Jo,
I am very sorry to hear about your mother. Although not the praying type, you have my sincerest hopes for her recovery.
One space. Two space. Three potato, four. Its according to mood. And emphasis. In school I loved english class as long as literature was being taught. Everything else was an interruption. Tonight I am sitting in ICU at UNC-CH writing this on a Kindle. So proper punctuation is difficult. My mother taught me to read by age 4. I didn’t read Tolstoy yet.(OK I’ve never thought much of Tolstoy) but I was well on my way by the time I started school. My mother encouraged, tempted and teased with readers digest. She’d laugh at one of the jokes and when we asked what was so funny she’d read it to us but after a while she would tell us to read it for ourselves. She would leave the book on the chair when she went to wash dishes and my sister and I would rush to get the book first. In the last few years she started listening to books on disc. She would not stop nagging me until I started listening to a series she had become interested in. Now I have a disc in my car at all times. She had brain tumor removed on Dec. 5. On Dec 9 we discussed the characters from her favorite series. She was articulate and full of good humor. That night she had a bleed. She stopped talking but she could nod. I started reading to her. The latest of the series. I finished the book on Christmas Eve. Christmas day she fell into a coma. Today at 2pm I asked them to temove the ventilator. I have the earbuds of my mp3 player in her ears I am playing her favorite from the series. If there is a tomorrow I will play another……….
Hey Jo,
So sorry about your Mom. I lost mine to cancer in 87 and after all these years; I still don’t have anything to help you.
One thing I am sure of is that your mom loves you and the fact that you are there for her and with her. It seems to me that when a person nears death; they come to an acceptance in most cases. My mom did I think. It was as if she was patiently waiting for it; understanding that the time was near and sort of being at peace with it I guess. When I went in for my Open Heart surgery; I knew there was a fair chance that I wouldn’t make it. My general health was not so good; I smoke and they were forced to wait seven days to let the Plavix clear my system (long story). They thought I would go before they could operate.
When the hospitals Chaplain came to see me I told her I was not afraid because I saw the surgey as ineveitable and if i passed on the table; I would be none the wiser. I was telling the truth. Somehow my mind allowed me to function as though the end didn’t matter although of course it did matter to me.
I guess what I’m trying so clumsily to say is that something; believe it is God, or your mind, or whatever. Something works to help you be calm and accepting of the inevitable and often; it isn’t as terrible and frightening as we are sometimes led to believe though this does n othing to help us with our loss I’m afraid.
Be strong but allow yourself to cry until you don’t feel like crying anymore. It’s good for the soul; purges emotions that are too powerful for us to handle
Jo,
I lost my father 48 years ago, my mother had died 11 months before. The time frame of loss means nothing, the pain never quite leaves. What happens is we let ourselves mourn.Through the emotional pain and our tears we resolve ourselves to the loss of someone so dear, never forgetting them and their impact on our life. I have empathy for your mother and the pain of those who loved her, while wishing all of you the comfort of her remembrance.
I’d say Ms. Keeton doesn’t have what it takes to be a clinical psychologist. She should change her major.
Jay “It seems to me that the woman in question should have gone after a divinity degree, and been ordained as a preacher.”
That would have made the most and best sense. Then she could counsel her bigotry to an appropriate audience.
(I am a 2 spaces after periods and adore semicolons.)
Mike, OS; Good teachers.. I wanted to read Grapes Of Wrath in 7th grade and told I could not (at least not for class) It was way too advanced for a 13 year old.
Blouise,
In re rcampbell’s post: Rebel With a Pause?
“for this post I’ve used three.” (rcampbell)
Rebel without a cause! I love it!
Mike, I was a pretty ordinary student in high school. My granddaughter on the other hand, tended to scare her teachers. When she was in the sixth grade she did a book report on Dracula. The full unexpurgated version—all 550 pages of it. She then branched out into Friedrich Nietzsche. She did her biography report on Jerry Garcia. When she handed that in, the teachers did not know whether to give her an A or call law enforcement.
In the seventh grade she was told she would have to recite a poem aloud in class. As might be expected, the entire class groaned, all except my granddaughter. She immediately stood up and asked if she could get it over with. She proceeded to recite two Robert Burns poems in a thick Scottish burr; Scots Wha’ Hae and My Heart’s in the Highlands. Her stunned teacher asked her where she had learned those. She replied, “My Pawpaw taught them to me when I was five years old.”
She wants to go to law school. Imagine being on the receiving end of one of her legal briefs.
Mike,
I was the English Teachers Nightmare…..
AY,
I was most teacher’s nightmare, saved only by being a fast reader/retainer/crammer. My typical essay grade was A for content and C or D for grammar. In 9th Grade in 1958 my weekly book reports covered “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, “Lolita” and Henry Miller’s “Sexus”. The other student’s usually did their reports on “The Black Stallion”. It won me no friends with the school administration and teacher’s.
You mean I could have gotten out of calculus….Why did I not know? I think she is stuck with the degree plan as it is in place…I bet Bachman and company can find her employment….
As far as two spaces….after a period….there are different schools of thought…
When these kinds of stories hit the news or the blogosphere I believe most people react as posters here. Even most believers, I think, would respond as angrymanspeaks has that on’es personal or religious view does not over ride functioning in a 21th century work environment. However, all too often we are subjected to the polarizing radical paranoid extremists when you hear national candidates like Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum exploit these stories and mischaracterizeas attacks on Christians or on religion itself.
I’m an admitted two space/comma using poster and will likely not change. The point of the two spaces, capitalization, commas quotation and other punctuation marks is to make what’s written more readable and I find their absence a bit off-putting. It’s one of the reasons I don’t text as it would take be 3X longer than most folks. They they may well be too ingrained to stop. However, in an effort to be modern and in deference to the apparent trend away from one space after a period, for this post I’ve used three.
As anyone who reads my stuff here knows I don’t do punctuation well. My mind was elsewhere in school when they taught it so my commas, colons et. al. go where they seem viscerally correct. I’m a one space guy, but just out of habit
mespo,
I could swear I wrote the following just a moment ago and posted it but …. perhaps it was all a dream. So, again …
Please take care of yourself as these bugs seem to be easily going into complications with ear infections being the most common.