A federal appeals court on Friday revived the lawsuit of a former graduate student in psychology who was kicked out of a master’s program at Eastern Michigan University for refusing to counsel gay clients in a way that affirmed their identities.
The student, Julea Ward, argues that the university’s actions denied her the right to observe her faith, while the university maintained that Ward was trying to get around legitimate academic requirements. The case is one of two moving through federal courts right now that center on the right of graduate programs in psychology to enforce requirements — based on outside groups’ ethics codes and the relevant department’s — that students counsel all clients in affirming, nonjudgmental ways.
The rulings in these cases have to date been in favor of the universities, so advocates for religious students were quick to declare Friday’s ruling a big win. But the ruling is based in part on some key differences between the case at Eastern Michigan and the other one (at Augusta State University), and the ruling explicitly said that there might be grounds for Eastern Michigan to prevail.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is being scrutinized both by advocates for religious students and those who want academic programs to enforce professional ethics in inclusive ways. But the case is now also attracting attention from advocates for a free student press in higher education. That’s because Friday’s ruling cites a 1988 Supreme Court decision that backed the right of administrations to censor high school student newspapers. Supporters of the campus press believe that the decision should not be applied in higher education (and generally it isn’t), so the citation surprised and worried many of them.
The appeals court ruling overturned a federal district judge’s finding in 2010 that Eastern Michigan was justified in kicking Ward out of the program. The 2010 ruling, by Judge George Steeh, said that Eastern Michigan’s polices were “quite narrowly drawn” and noted that they were “not a prohibition on a counselor making statements about their values and beliefs in a setting other than with a client.” Eastern Michigan bases its policies on guidelines from the American Counseling Association, which bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, and require counselors to be trained and able to interact with clients without imposing the counselor’s values.
A unanimous decision for the appeals court, written by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, said that a jury might reasonably conclude that Eastern Michigan was using its policies as a pretext for discriminating against Ward for her religious views. Ward describes herself as an “orthodox Christian,” who believes that homosexuality is “morally wrong.” A significant part of her case is that she said that she would refer gay clients to other counselors, not seek to impose her views on them. She argues that this would not harm a client or force her to espouse things with which she does not believe. Ward argues as well that Eastern Michigan and others involved in training counselors in fact tolerate such “values-based” referrals. Eastern Michigan says that allowing someone to refer all members of a group to other counselors is a specific violation of the counseling association’s code of conduct, and that is why Ward was dismissed.
The appeals court decision notes the lack of a written university policy of “no referrals,” and says that this policy may have been an “after-the-fact invention” to justify religious discrimination. Further, the appeals court says that the hearing Eastern Michigan conducted on Ward was “not a model of dispassion,” and featured questions about her religious views with regard to gay
Article source: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/30/appeals-court-revives-suit-dismissal-anti-gay-psychology-student
