Augusta State Univ to Counseling Student: Change [Christian] Beliefs or Get Out

LifeSiteNews.com -- Your Life, Family, and Culture Outpost ^ | Thursday July 22, 2010

[topher]

Thursday July 22, 2010

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Augusta State Univ. to Counseling Student: Change Beliefs or Get Out

AUGUSTA, Georgia, July 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student who was allegedly told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, says she has been told to stop communicating her beliefs and that she must undergo "training" to accept homosexuality in order to graduate from the counseling program.

Augusta State ordered Keeton 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 expel her from the Counselor Education Program.

“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French.

“Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop."

Keeton, 24, is pursuing her master’s degree in counseling at Augusta State. Lawyers say that after her professors learned of her biblical beliefs, specifically her views on homosexual conduct, the school imposed the re-education plan. Keeton says she never denigrated anyone in communicating her beliefs but merely stated factually what they were in appropriate contexts.

The plan, according to ADF lawyers, assails Keeton’s beliefs as inconsistent with the counseling profession and expresses suspicion over “Jen’s ability to be a multiculturally competent counselor, particularly with regard to working with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (GLBTQ) populations.” They say the plan requires her to take steps to change her beliefs through additional assignments and additional “diversity sensitivity training" and to “work to increase exposure and interactions with gay populations. One such activity could be attending the Gay Pride Parade in Augusta.”

Each month, Keeton is allegedly required to complete a report on how the “remediation” assignments have influenced her beliefs so that faculty can “decide the appropriateness of her continuation in the counseling program.” Lawyers say the plan concludes by noting that “failure to complete all elements of the remediation plan will result in dismissal from the Counselor Education Program.”

In an ADF video, Keeton said that, “While I want to stay in the school counseling program, I know that I can't honestly complete the remediation plan knowing that I would have to alter my beliefs." "I'm not willing to, and I know I can't, change my Biblical views," she said.

ADF attorneys filed the complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction in Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley with the U.S. District Court for the District of Georgia.

ADF is currently litigating a similar case involving a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University and successfully resolved a case at Missouri State University. Also in litigation is a case involving a Georgia counselor fired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because she would not agree to affirm homosexual behavior as morally acceptable.

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10072207.html

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[Chickensoup]

They are doing nothing here except reiterating the positions of the American Counseling Association, the American Social Worker Association, The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association and numerous Leftist Churches.

[infowarrior]

One wonders how her professors would react if she announced that she had converted to Islam and that she now believes that homosexuals should be executed by stoning.

Indeed, one does wonder...

the infowarrior

[Salvation]

Thanks for your info. So appropriate when choosing a college.

[Lmo56]

The Augusta State University "Re-Educators ...

"The beatings will continue until morale improves ..."

[NurdlyPeon]

What galls these creeps the most are the results: Genuinely embracing Christianity has righted far more screwed up lives than all the modern secular humanist counseling out there.

You know, I hadn't ever thought of that, but you're probably right.

[chilltherats]

Sue the effers down to their panties and shoelaces.

[ConservativeMind]

There are more “Queer Studies” programs coming out and a bunch of state universities here in the Midwest.

It was only a few years ago that calling someone a “queer” was considered derogatory. Bizarre.

[RoadTest]

“The Left is not out to maintain a compatible set of values with you - it wants to crush you. The Left is not hypocritical, the Left is antithetical.”

I meant they say one thing and do the opposite. Isn’t that hypocrisy?

[topher]

Contact LifeSiteNews.com -- they would know how to contact her...

Here is their contact webpage:

Contact Webpage for LifeSiteNews.com

They are a small organization, so I believe they discourage direct emails...

They do have a contact form to fill out...

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

This is a ‘State’ university? They ought to lose ALL state financial support over this. The perps in the school Administration should be fired and held responsible for monitary damages.

[redgolum]

They can, because her religion is viewed as non PC.

I fear that there will be demands made by the fedgov very soon that all Christianity accommodate the sodomites.

[AngieGal]

Her lawsuit is against Dr. Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley. According to the South Carolina Counseling Association’s website (http://www.sccounselor.org/uploads/Executive-Council.asp). She is the President-Elect of their organization.

Here is her contact information, in case anyone feels like complaining directly.

Dr. Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley
524 Henderson Drive
Augusta, G. A. 30909
706-738-7486 (H)
706-667-4497 (O)
Manders9@aug.edu

[chesley]

well, I can agree with you about Hitler’s character. But liberals ARE hypocrites, as can easily be demonstrated.

[Vigilanteman]

Religious bigots, like their libtard bigot cousins, are pretty much of the same stripe: they disparage results, but think they should be rewarded for good intentions.

When you understand one, you understand the other because there is so much overlap.

[cowboyusa]

But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
23On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“ ‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One.[c]’[d] 27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people[e] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and SPOKE THE WORD OF GOD BOlDLY./p>

[YHAOS]

“There is a place for witnessing and there is a place for counseling.”

You raise interesting issues. Is “witnessing” (an activity Christians are enjoined by their religion to do, albeit not in all circumstances) something similar to “proselytizing” (something Moslems vehemently oppose, other than their own)? Does not extolling the virtues of a positive acceptance, if not open glorification, of homosexual lifestyles constitute “proselytizing”? If not, why not?

I’m not familiar with the protocols of professional counseling, but I can’t imagine counseling taking place in a values vacuum. So the question arises, what values? What values are acceptable for counseling? Surely not human sacrifice, or the blood sacrifice of goats or chickens in lieu of humans. Nor, we must think, the advocating of female bondage for the purposes of prostitution. But at Augusta State, by all accounts Christian values must be numbered right along with blood sacrifice and female bondage as unacceptable for Counseling values.

“. . . it really would be inappropriate for a counselor to couch her practice, advice or therapy with “her qualifiers”.”

What does that mean? If the accusation is that Miss Keeton is “proselytizing” (that is, “witnessing” or “preaching”), whence comes the charge? We’ve no indication Miss Keeton has given a signal that her intention is to “convert” homosexuals or other unbelievers. If a patient were to confess pedophilia (someone in serious need of counseling), would it be “inappropriate” for a counselor to couch his practice advice or therapy with certain “qualifiers”? Would not the counselor be roundly condemned for a failure to do exactly that? Yet Miss Keeton’s values apparently are not acceptable, however mildly expressed.

[Old Landmarks]

btttt