Since Pastor Giglio withdrew from the upcoming presidential inauguration due to leftist outrage over a sermon about homosexual conduct, a variety of voices have rallied to his defense.  These voices include fellow ministers like Albert Mohler, constitutional attorneys like Jordan Lorence, and others like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.  But recently, two younger voices—and former Alliance Defending Freedom clients—highlighted how those who advocate for tolerance the most display it the least. 

After recounting Pastor Giglio’s wide-ranging ministry, Ruth Malhotra and Jennifer Keeton describe just how “tolerantly” leftists treats those who disagree with them:

The extreme opposition to Giglio was yet another example of a tragic lesson we learned firsthand as students at public universities.  And that lesson is this:  unless you embrace, applaud, and advocate for the homosexual lifestyle and same-sex marriage, your views, your voice, and even your work on behalf of the poor and suffering are not welcome in the public square.

Despite all the sacrificial efforts one may have invested into humanitarian causes for the greater good, there is this rabid insistence that in order to do anything in the civic arena—including offer a prayer at a monumental event for our nation—you must not have, at any time in your history, spoken in a way that is disagreeable to a certain group of activists.

As they explain, this extreme intolerance of those who hold Biblical views extends from high-profile events like an inaugural benediction to university campuses, where it is pervasive.  And it involves a range of tactics:  “Sometimes—as in the case of Giglio—the tactic of the far-left involves attempts to shame and shun those they disagree with, and other times they actually use the force of law to silence those who do not share their worldview.”

For Ruth and Jennifer, this effort to purge the public square of any viewpoints the left deems “offensive” or “intolerant” is far from theoretical.  Instead, they speak from personal experience, as they have both stood courageously to defend their convictions and freedoms at Georgia Tech and Augusta State University:

We were repeatedly censored, threatened, and condemned for our refusal to conform to a narrow agenda regarding human sexual behavior.  We were told by administrators and professors that we must change our Biblical beliefs, follow impossibly vague speech codes, and undergo comprehensive programs of thought reform.  Our cases, filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, defended the freedom of Christian and conservative students to speak on matters of public importance and to pursue our fields of study without compromising our convictions.  In response to our lawsuits, the Tolerance Inquisition unleashed its fury.  We faced everything from snide insults to false attacks on our character to threats of rape and murder so serious that Ruth was put under police protection.

Sadly, Pastor Giglio’s experience illustrates how the mindset so typical on university campuses is beginning to leech into the rest of society.  The only way for this to change is for Christians—whether on campus or off—to ignore the social stigma and stand up for their beliefs.  When they do, we stand ready to assist them and to insist that their freedom to exercise and proclaim those beliefs be respected.

Update:  Ruth’s and Jennifer’s column is also available at The Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Christian Post.

Years ago, Abigail Thernstrom described universities as “islands of repression in a sea of freedom.”  More recently, several columnists have highlighted how the effort to indoctrinate students pervades virtually every aspect of campus life.

Last month, George Will’s Washington Post column outlined how campus speech codes actually train students to support censorship.  In so doing, universities stifle the robust debate and exchange of ideas they claim to support.  And because these speech codes affect every aspect of student life—from the classroom to the dorm room—they are a particularly pernicious method for suppressing unpopular ideas.

Just today, Thomas Sowell’s column, The Role of ‘Educators,’ highlights how this indoctrination occurs in the classroom.  After all, far too many professors see them­selves as “agent[s] of change” who are “strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society.”  Of course, some openly ad­mit this.  For example, Richard Rorty—a long-time philosophy professor—explained that he “like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities . . . try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homo­phobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.”  He even warned parents that he and his colleagues “are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist re­ligious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than dis­cussable.”  As Sowell notes, having discarded the job of teaching people how to think, these professors seek to undermine the values that made America great.

Last week, Jeremy Tedesco’s column at Townhall.com trumpeted Julea Ward’s victory against indoctrination efforts cloaked as practicum assignments.  After she took an unpopular stand for years, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed her conviction that she should not be forced to endorse behavior she considered immoral by ruling that public universities “cannot compel students to alter or violate their beliefs . . . as the price for obtaining a degree.”  This is a tremendous victory for religious freedom, one that will benefit students far beyond just Eastern Michigan University.

Last month, Mike Adams critiqued the Supreme Court’s unfortunate ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which extends indoctrination efforts into the extracurricular arena.  In Cleaning Up After Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mike highlights some of the flaws of the decision, but he also describes how his university has stretched Martinez to violate the freedoms of religious and political student groups.  In A Queer Need for Rejection, he explains how Martinez exposes some student groups—such as a Christian group that expects its leaders to live by Biblical principles—to harassment and the constant threat of discrimination charges.

Of course, if you have experienced any of these avenues of indoctrination, please contact us.  Your rights may well have been violated, and you may be in a position to secure not only your own freedoms but—like Julea Ward—those of countless others as well. 

It’s well documented that college and university professors lean way to the left. So much so that they often vilify conservative students and attempt to bully them to convert to their liberal worldview. You can read more about this in an article published in our most recent e-newsletter. (Sign up for this great way to keep informed about what’s happening on our nation’s campuses here.)

But now we have proof that the liberal bullying by teachers at tax-supported schools is not limited to the realms of higher education. The principal at Charles Carroll High School in Philadelphia confirms a teenaged honor student, Samantha Pawlucy, was accosted by her math teacher for wearing a t-shirt to school supporting Mitt Romney and Matt Ryan. The teacher told her to get out of her class, and said,  ”You can’t wear a Republican shirt in a Democratic school.”

But Miss Pawlucy is made of sterner stuff than most, and refused to leave. She also refused to take the shirt off, as instructed by her teacher, who along with other students, continued to tease her and compared her shirt to a KKK robe.

Surprisingly the school principal knew enough about the constitution to take action immediately and transfer the ignorant teacher out of Miss Pawlucy’s class. The teacher herself obviously has no understanding of free speech, so some elementary training on the constitutional rights of conservative students by the principal is warranted right away.

But let me get this straight. A teacher being paid with tax dollars not only has the audacity to criticize the political views of one her students, but actually calls her a bigot and compares her to the KKK because she supports the candidate that is most committed to religious freedom. She then attempts to remove the child from the classroom, and leads other students in continuing to harass Miss Pawlucy because of her conservative beliefs.

This cancer of liberal bias in our public education system has metastasized to the point that teachers and professors have no fear of repercussion when they attempt to force students in their charge to accept their extreme values. And a more recent report indicates a school in Tampa actually allowed a pro-Obama  organization to campaign in that high school (without equal time for a GOP group), though school officials claim they were deceived into thinking the group was from the elections office. We need some serious constitutional chemotherapy and that begins with parents and students – from elementary school to college - getting informed about their fundamental rights and responsibilities. You can start by accessing our resources at AllianceDefendingFreedom.org/Education or contacting us at 800-835-5233 if you need free legal advice on how to stand up like my new heroine Samanta Pawlucy at your school.

Campusreform.org and Watchdogwire are reporting that a math professor at Brevard Community College (near Cape Canaveral, Florida) required her students to sign a pledge that said, “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.” After school officials received a complaint from a concerned parent, the professor hastily requested leave without pay, and the officials granted it, pending an investigation.  Maybe they’ll find she was teaching them something about Electoral College math.

It is a gross violation of a students’ constitutional rights for a professor at a government school to require students to sign a pledge to vote for a certain political candidate.  This would violate the students’ right to vote for the candidate of their choice, as well as violate their freedom of speech right against compelled speech (being forced to say something you don’t really believe). Back in 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Barnette that a public school cannot force students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Similarly, a professor cannot force students to pledge to vote for a certain candidate.

In a similar case several years ago, ADF filed a lawsuit against Missouri State University when school officials punished Emily Brooker for asking her social work professor for an exemption from an assignment to write her state legislators and urge them to support a bill that would legalize adoption of children by same-sex couples.  Emily could not in good conscience support the bill, so she asked the professor to give her an alternative assignment.  The professor filed academic charges against her, and subjected her to a brutal interrogation about her beliefs.  ADF sued on Emily’s behalf, and she received a very favorable out of court settlement in that case.

What amazes me is that any professor at any university would even think it was a proper pedagogical technique to force students to pledge to vote for a certain political candidate, or to write their lawmakers to support a specific piece of legislation.   A professor should be knowledgeable about the basics of the Constitution, and the Constitution protects each individual’s freedom to vote for whom he chooses, and to speak or not to speak for a particular cause.

If you encounter any problems like these ones, please contact us at Alliance Defending Freedom.

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reminded the nation that “[t]olerance is a two-way street.”  But a new study suggests that academics—particularly psychologists—have yet to get the message.  Not only do they overwhelmingly tilt towards the left end of the political spectrum, but they also admittedly discriminate against conservatives. 

In this study, two researchers from Tilburg University asked psychology faculty and graduate students to describe their own political beliefs.  In fact, they did so twice, and they asked participants to describe their views on economic, foreign policy, and social issues.  The results from both surveys resoundingly confirmed that psychology faculty tilt way left. 

The tilt is so pronounced that the researchers concluded conservatives are a “substantial minority” among psychologists because 30–40% are not liberal on economic or foreign policy issues.  Only in a world where over 90% describe themselves as leftists on social issues and 85% rate themselves as leftists overall could 70% leftist domination be considered “diverse.”

Of course, some might respond to this by saying, “So what.  This has no real impact on the day-to-day life of professors.”  But the research tells a different story.  In reality, conservative faculty members face a hostile environment on campus.  To quote the researchers:

The more conservative respondents were, the more they had personally experienced a hostile climate. . . .  The more liberal respondents were, the less they believed that conservatives faced a hostile climate. 

What accounts for this difference? 

This was driven entirely by more conservative respondents’ greater personal experience of a hostile climate. . . .  This suggests that the hostile climate reported by conservatives is invisible to those who do not experience it themselves. 

But what created this leftist imbalance and the hostility towards conservatives?  Could it be, as Dr. Haidt suspected in 2011, that the profession engages in rampant discrimination?  Or could it be, as some have suggested, that “liberals may be more interested in new ideas, more willing to work for peanuts, or just more intelligent, all of which may push them to pursue the academic life while deterring their conservative peers”?  Or could it be that “the field of social psychology self-selects for liberals and might even create them?”  The research points to discrimination.

The researchers asked participants “how likely they would be to discriminate against conservatives” when evaluating papers, grants, symposium invitations, and job applicants.  They also asked participants how likely their colleagues would be to discriminate against conservatives in the same areas.  The results were disturbing.  Almost 20% admitted they would at least be somewhat inclined to discriminate against conservatives when reviewing papers.  Almost 25% would discriminate in reviewing grants and almost 40% would when making hiring decisions.  And they consistently thought their colleagues were even more likely to discriminate.

As the researchers concluded:

Thus, willingness to discriminate is not limited to small decisions.  In fact, it is strongest when it comes to the most important decisions, such as grant proposals and hiring.  And the more liberal respondents were, the more willing they were to discriminate. 

Of course, the results of this study will not come as news to students who have experienced professors that inject their political views into class or to students who feel pressured agree with those views to get a good grade.  Nor will they surprise conservative professors like Dr. Mike Adams (who was denied a promotion because his colleagues vociferously disliked his conservative beliefs), Kenneth Howell (who was fired for teaching Catholic theology in a class about Catholic theology), June Sheldon (who was terminated for answering questions about homosexuality in a genetics class), and Theresa Wagner (who was not hired because of her pro-life views).  But they should come as a disappointment to those who think that we should—in the words of Thomas Jefferson—“follow the truth wherever it may lead.”  For as the researchers noted, “as offensive as it may seem to many social psychologists, believing that abortion is murder does not mean that one cannot do excellent research.”  And these results should also disturb the millions of Americans who think that universities should serve as a “marketplace of ideas,” where all perspectives are welcome and addressed on their merits.