This is a topic like Critical Race Theory except its for the gender-confused. Its aim is the same. Establish and enforce coerced speech rules with violations to punish people as “haters and discriminators.”
Related: If You Value Free Speech Stop Allowing Serial Liars to Police the Truth
“Free Speech and Thought should ALWAYS override the popular Culture Fad of the Day.
This topic is near and dear to my heart even though I haven’t written as much as I should have. This appearsto be affecting most NH School Districts. Putting the NH School Board Association’s Policy JBAB in effect that deals with “Transgender and non-Conforming Students.
You can see what I’ve written about it and what happened in my School District, Gilford’s SAU 73, when they tried to force Preferred Pronouns down peoples’ (including their Employers) throats. I won, they lost because of NH’s Right to Know Law (RSA 91:A). But this is just BOFFO (as the Brits would exclaim!). Abstracted (it’s a long post but well worth your time to read. Reformatted, emphasis mine:
Professor can’t be punished for not using transgender student’s pronouns, appeals court rules
Judge had asked university if it would also force Jewish professor to address student as “My Fuhrer.”A public university violated a professor’s constitutional rights by punishing him for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday. In a unanimous opinion written by Judge Amul Thapar, a Supreme Court short-lister for former President Trump, the court compared the Ohio university’s behavior to a “McCarthy era” law against “subversive” government employees.
Philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether, a “devout Christian,” sought an accommodation under which he would not have to address the student as a woman in classroom discussions, which often touched on gender identity as a cultural controversy. Shawnee State University officials belatedly ordered Meriwether to stop addressing the student only by name and instead use female pronouns. They also shot down his offer to tell students in the syllabus that he was being forced to use preferred pronouns.
Well, this sets up the situation when a public institution demands coerced speech from its employees (Policy JBAB demanded it from ANYONE on school property, even someone just watching a sports event or a play)
Provost Jeffrey Bauer “openly laughed” when Meriwether’s union representative explained why his religious beliefs forbade him from using the student’s preferred pronouns, the professor claimed. Bauer twice rejected the faculty grievance on Meriwether’s behalf — first as provost and then as interim president of the university.
It seems to be yet another case where a Constitutional Right, Freedom of Religion and the Expression thereof, is headed to being a non-entity in the ever-enlarging Progressive world view. In the school, it certainly seems that the Majority no longer respect the minority’s Rights under our Bill of Rights.
There is no respect from these neo-Feudalists for these Rights – why should they? THey are trying to recreate the Divine Right of Kings for themselves in determining what is right or wrong outside of existing Law.
And this is VERY amusing! And each argument made by the school in defense of its “Discrimination!” defense was shown the deference it deserved: none at all.
Oral argument didn’t go well for Shawnee State last fall. Judge Thapar asked then if the university would force a Jewish professor to honor a student’s request to be addressed as “My Fuhrer”. The court was particularly critical of the school’s shifting explanation for threatening to fire Meriwether if he again failed to address the student as a woman. Shawnee State first claimed the professor was creating a “hostile educational environment,” despite the fact that the student continued to excel academically. The university switched the charge to “disparate impact” after the faculty grievance, and then switched back to “hostile environment” during oral argument before the court. “These repeated changes in position, along with the alleged religious hostility, permit a plausible inference that the university was not applying a preexisting policy in a neutral way, but was instead using an evolving policy as pretext for targeting Meriwether’s beliefs,” the opinion said, reinstating Meriwether’s lawsuit.
“This case forced us to defend what used to be a common belief — that nobody should be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep their job,” said John Bursch, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the professor. “If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity,” even to the point of forcing “a civil rights icon to condemn the Freedom Riders.” Public universities cannot act as “classroom thought police.”
Nor should Government schools K-12. Remember, Policy JBAB stated that anyone NOT bowing to its coerced speech ultimatum would be seen as “a violation of this Policy” without stating what the violation repercussion would be yielding an arbitrary and capricious outcome – and one, I suspect, more akin to a witch trial behind close doors.
The Gilford School Board and the school administrators were unhappy when I said a similar thing:
Coerced speech leads to coerced thought and we ALL know that has led to in history (at least those of us who know our history)
As I have related in the past, that Bastion that formerly protected Individual Rights, the ACLU and its “Transgender Project” all groaned when I said it. But they couldn’t refute it. Back to the Christian professor and the college that was discriminating against him.
…”Equated his good-faith convictions with racism”…“That ban is anathema to the principles underlying the First Amendment,” and it also deprived students the opportunity to hear “contrarian views,” which harmed their education, the court said. The university cannot satisfy its “compelling interest in stopping discrimination against transgender students” by giving itself license to “discipline professors, students, and staff any time their speech might cause offense,” the opinion said. The judges also scolded university officials for their alleged “religious hostility” toward the professor when he raised concerns about the gender-identity policy.
BINGO!
Yeah, Government saying “SILENCE, you neo-Heathen!” is not a good look.
When you take it down to its lowest level, the University decided that it had the right to discriminate against a religious minority in order to punish what it thought was “discrimination against a gender minority”. Since when is Gender Identity a value higher than the black and white Right in the Constitution? But this is what the Left does – they no LONGER even bother to check what is in the Constitution – they want it to disappear when you look at their actions (like NH State Rep Jan Schmidt in trying to silence us by having our hosting company shut us down or the Progressive sponsors of HB1159 trying to set up legal entrapments that would bankrupt us (since we really are a ‘non-profit’ rag-tag bunch of volunteers expressing our point of views).
This Jennifer Pauley sounds like Bruce, especially the “fear” part, never understanding how deep and how integrated someone’s Christian Faith is to their very being (and may I add, soul). It is what it makes them – yet the Left cannot but dismiss it because 1) it doesn’t understand it and 2) can’t understand why ANYONE would disagree with them and 3) since they can’t know and understand, denigrates it as a fairy tale to be summarily dismissed.
His department chair Jennifer Pauley told him that religion “oppresses students” and that Christians were “primarily motivated by fear,” Meriwether claimed. Provost Bauer allegedly wouldn’t even let the professor’s union rep present the grievance after laughing at Meriwether’s beliefs. And the labor director compared the professor’s views to “religiously motivated racism or sexism,” the court said.
Oof – have you all heard all of this before? I bet you have! And in this case, we should all thank the Prof for heading Glenn Reynolds’s admonition to “punch back twice as hard” when your Rights are diminished by…..a Government school.
The judges compared Shawnee State’s alleged actions to how the Colorado Civil Rights Commission mocked the Christian baker Jack Phillips for refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake. In response to Meriwether’s request for accommodation, “the university derided him and equated his good-faith convictions with racism.”
The end result is that religious faith is not to be screwed around by Government – be it a college or any other “subdivision of The State”.
That has just given me an idea….or three!
There’s more at the post so take a read.
(H/T: Just the News)
