If you read this blog within the past few days, you already know that the Sixth Circuit issued a terrific decision for religious liberty in ADF’s case on behalf of Julea Ward, a student Eastern Michigan University (EMU) expelled from its counseling program because of her religious beliefs.  Among its many memorable quotes is this zinger: “Tolerance is a two-way street.”  This is tough medicine for public universities, which so often preach tolerance but practice it for only those who agree with the leftist views that dominate most college campuses.

In addition to this great quote on tolerance, I also wanted to share a few quotes from the opinion that show the refreshing common sense the court applied in rejecting EMU’s arguments.

One of EMU’s primary reasons for expelling Julea was that she allegedly violated an American Counseling Association (ACA) ethics provision against imposing values on a client.  EMU alleged this despite the facts that Julea 1) never even met the client in question, and 2) asked to refer the client.  The court saw right through EMU’s odd argument that asking for a referral is tantamount to imposing your values:

What exactly did Ward do wrong in making the referral request? . . . . The point of the referral request was to avoid imposing her values on gay and lesbian clients. And the referral request not only respected the diversity of practicum clients, but it also conveyed her willingness to counsel gay and lesbian clients about other issues—all but relationship issues—an attitude confirmed by her equivalent concern about counseling heterosexual clients about extra-marital sex and adultery in a values-affirming way.

The court also relied on common sense in rejecting EMU’s claim that Julea violated an ACA provision that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation:

Here too, what did Ward do wrong? Ward was willing to work with all clients and to respect the school’s affirmation directives in doing so. That is why she asked to refer gay and lesbian clients (and some heterosexual clients) if the conversation required her to affirm their sexual practices. What more could the rule require? Surely, for example, the ban on discrimination against clients based on their religion (1) does not require a Muslim counselor to tell a Jewish client that his religious beliefs are correct if the conversation takes a turn in that direction and (2) does not require an atheist counselor to tell a person of faith that there is a God if the client is wrestling with faith-based issues. Tolerance is a two-way street. Otherwise, the rule mandates orthodoxy, not anti-discrimination.

In addition to our strong First Amendment claims in the case, we had argued all along that simple common sense defeated EMU’s claims that Julea had violated the ACA ethics code.  Seeking to refer a client is the exact opposite of imposing your values on them.  And a nondiscrimination rule interpreted to require students to promote ideas that violate their most sincerely held moral and religious convictions is nothing more than an ideological sledgehammer for compelling thought conformity.  I was very pleased the court shed some much needed common sense on the matter.

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We praise God for this encouraging victory!

Your support can make all the difference

ADF is committed to reclaiming and preserving religious freedom on public university campuses. By God’s grace, and with the prayers and financial support of Christians like you, we will continue our winning record of success—defending the constitutionally protected rights of students, like Julea Ward, to freely live out their faith.

The double standard for student speech is playing out again at UC Davis.  The Sacramento Bee reports that Occupy UC Davis has moved its operations from “a tent encampment” (seriously, who likes camping for months on end?) to the vacant Cross Cultural Center on campus, and plan to occupy it permanently.  In response, the UC Davis sent in campus police and arrested the students for trespassing, right?  Wrong.  The Bee reports:

Campus officials are taking a wait-and-see approach.

“We’ll be monitoring it and making decision based on the overall best interest of the university,” said Claudia Morain, a spokeswoman for the university.

If this had been a Christian or pro-life student group, you can be sure that campus police would have moved in immediately.  Universities barely let Christian and pro-life students hold signs or hand out leaflets on campus without threatening arrest, let alone occupy an entire building.

Maybe one day campus administrators will wait-and-see that Christian and pro-life speech isn’t so bad after all.

Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in ADF’s case involving Julea Ward, a student Eastern Michigan University expelled from its graduate counseling program because of her religious beliefs.  The court reversed the lower court’s ruling against Julea, finding that “a reasonable jury could conclude that Ward’s professors ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward her speech and faith.”

Striking at the very heart of Ms. Ward’s lawsuit, the court said that: “A university cannot compel a student to alter or violate her belief systems based on a phantom policy as the price for obtaining a degree.”

We are certainly pleased the court recognized this important First Amendment principle and highlighted many of the facts in the the record showing that this is precisely the demand Eastern Michigan made of Julea.

For more information about the Sixth Circuit’s ruling and other information about this case, please see our press release.

We praise God for this encouraging victory!

Your support can make all the difference

ADF is committed to reclaiming and preserving religious freedom on public university campuses. By God’s grace, and with the prayers and financial support of Christians like you, we will continue our winning record of success—defending the constitutionally protected rights of students, like Julea Ward, to freely live out their faith.

             Thirty-nine years ago the United States Supreme Court recognized that medical professionals, let alone others, have a right not to assist in abortions in violation of their conscience.  What’s that?  Yes, I do have the date right.  I’m talking about Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.  While those cases held, wrongly, that women and their doctors have a fundamental constitutional right to kill an unborn child, they also recognized as important predicates to those decisions the right NOT to participate in abortion in violation of one’s conscience.  Friday’s announcement that the Obama Administration would force employers – including nonprofit religious employers – to pay for their employees’ contraception and abortifacients is just the latest example of how the abortion industry and its friends in the Obama Administration are attacking these well established rights of conscience in ways even the authors of Roe and Doe did not envision.

Even at the time of Roe, some were concerned that legalized abortion would lead to compelled participation in abortion, a concern that was not misplaced as ACLU attorneys were working in Montana to force Catholic hospitals to perform sterilizations.  The Supreme Court acknowledged but dismissed that concern, holding only that “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, … the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated.”  The Court cited favorably the resolution of the AMA House of Delegates stating:

RESOLVED, That no physician or other professional personnel shall be compelled to perform any act which violates his good medical judgment. Neither physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of personally held moral principles. In these circumstances, good medical practice requires only that the physician or other professional personnel withdraw from the case so long as the withdrawal is consistent with good medical practice.

Similarly, in Doe v. Bolton while the Supreme Court struck down some parts of a Georgia abortion law, it left standing a provision that allowed any medical professional or hospital to decline to participate in abortions, saying that this provision was an “appropriate protection to the individual and to the denominational hospital.”  Thus, in the seminal abortion decisions that President Obama and the abortion industry celebrate this weekend, the same Court acknowledged the right NOT to assist in abortions in violation of conscience.

To be absolutely sure however, the U.S. Congress passed the Church Amendments, turning back ACLU efforts to treat Catholic hospitals receiving Medicare funds as public hospitals and force them to perform sterilizations (and ultimately abortions), and prohibiting recipients of certain federal funds from requiring medical professionals or any person to participate in abortions, sterilizations, or other procedures in violation of conscience.  This was so uncontroversial it passed with only a single vote against in either house – a vote total unthinkable even for a bill to honor mom and apple pie today.  In fact, noted right wing extremist Senator Ted Kennedy spoke in favor of the law on the floor of the Senate, saying that it protected the constitutional right not to participate in abortion and he supported the “full protection to the religious freedom of physicians and others.”  In 1973, as the opinions reflect, there was no doubt that whatever right the penumbral emanations of the constitution gave to women and doctors to participate in abortions, it certainly protected the right not to participate in abortions or other medical procedures that violated one’s conscience.

It is in the face of this history that the Obama Administration announced on Friday that it will, with only a 1 year reprieve, fine virtually every faith-based ministry in the country that does not pay for contraception and abortifacients (Plan B, Ella, IUD, etc. included).  This decision is certainly an affront to religious liberty –perhaps the greatest in our nation’s history.  But it is also completely unsupported, indeed rejected by the very cases that the Obama Administration would use to support its cause.  Roe and Doe, as bad as those decisions are, reject the Administration’s claim that a woman’s “right” to contraception and abortifacients justify the federal government compelling Christ-centered ministries to violate their conscience by buying these for them.  When you hear abortion industry supporters rely upon those decisions to justify this assault on conscience, don’t believe it.  Even Roe itself is conservative compared to the radical anti-life advocacy of the present Administration.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is forcing virtually all employers to include contraceptives – including some that cause abortion – in their group health insurance plans.  The HHS “Preventive Services Mandate” applies to many religious employers who believe that the use of some or all of these drugs and devices is immoral.  As a result, the federal government is violating rights of conscience on a massive scale.

In 2010, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.”  The Act requires group health plans to include certain preventive health services.  The law gave HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) the power to determine what “preventive services” had to be covered.  HRSA decided that plans would have to include “[a]ll Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”  The FDA has approved the sale and marketing of Plan B and ella as contraceptives, even though both can function as abortifacients.

Many religious organizations believe that abortion is morally wrong.  Some also object to contraception and sterilization.  The religious exemption in HHS’s contraceptive mandate, however, is shockingly narrow.  To avoid being forced to pay for morally problematic drugs, devices, procedures, and counseling, a religious organization must convince the federal government (1) that its purpose is the inculcation of religious values; (2) that it “primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization”; (3) that it “serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization”; and (4) that it has a particular tax status with the IRS — one that most non-church religious organizations do not have.  Given the narrowness of the objection, most religious schools, colleges, universities, and social service ministries are covered by the mandate.  Moreover, individuals who pay premiums into group health plans (or who will utilize the “exchanges” envisioned by Obamacare) will be forced to financially contribute to the purchase of abortion-causing drugs.

A host of religious organizations and religious freedom advocates have urged the Administration to abandon the mandate or, barring that, substantially broaden the religious exemption.  To date, those efforts have not borne any fruit.  Legislators in both houses of Congress have introduced bills designed to remedy the Administration’s unprecedented violation of the right of conscience.  So far, those bills have not advanced.  Two lawsuits have been filed, and more are expected.