By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A 24 year-old graduate student is suing Augusta State University in Georgia after being told she will be dismissed from the program unless she “alters” her religious beliefs concerning homosexuality and transgendered persons.
Fox News is reporting that Jennifer Keeton, who is pursuing a master’s degree in school counseling, is suing the school after being told that she will be expelled from the program unless she alters her “central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct” pertaining to homosexuality and gender identity.
In a 43-page civil complaint filed last week, it was revealed that the faculty of the university “promised to expel Miss Keeton from the graduate Counselor Education Program not because of poor academic showing or demonstrated deficiencies in clinical performance, but simply because she has communicated both inside and outside the classroom that she holds to Christian ethical convictions on matters of human sexuality and gender identity.”
According to the complain, school officials told Keeton in May that she would have to take part in a remediation plan due to faculty concerns regarding her beliefs pertaining to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. Should she fail to complete the plan, which includes reading and the writing of papers describing the impact of her beliefs, she will be expelled from the university’s Counselor Education Program.
“The faculty identifies Miss Keeton’s views as indicative of her improper professional disposition to persons of such populations,” the lawsuit reads.
In the lawsuit, Keeton says she believes sexual behavior is the “result of accountable personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from deterministic forces.” She also affirms binary male-female gender, “with one or the other being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created.” The suit also states her belief that homosexuality “is a ‘lifestyle,’ not a ‘state of being.'”
Augusta State University officials declined to comment to Fox News about the case, but did say the university does not discriminate on the basis of students’ moral, religious, political or personal views or beliefs.
“The Counselor Education Program is grounded in the core principles of the American Counseling Association and the American School Counselor Association, which defines the roles and responsibilities of professional counselors in its code of ethics,” the statement read. “The code is included in the curriculum of the counseling education program, which states that counselors in training have the same responsibility as professional counselors to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics.”
David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit against Augusta State University on Keeton’s behalf, said no university has the right to force a citizen to change their beliefs on any topic.
“The university has told Jennifer Keeton that if she doesn’t change her beliefs, she can’t stay in the program,” he told FoxNews.com. “She won’t even have a chance to counsel any students; she won’t have a chance to get a counseling degree; she’ll be expelled.”
He added: “A student has a right to express their point of view in and out of class without fear or censorship or expulsion.”.
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