WARNING: This will come out pretty impassioned; I have strong feelings on the subject. If your feelings are opposed, I support your decision to tell me so, but I hope that no one will be rude in what they say. I am trying to be fair as well.
What right does a university have to expel a student based on his or her beliefs? It's one thing to do so if the belief is in terrorism, imprisoning Jews, or something like that. But what right does a university have to expel a student for refusing to support a lifestyle he or she disagrees with?
I just read an article about a federal judge upholding a university's decision to expel a counseling student who opposes homosexuality (click there to read). The girl was a graduate student in school counseling who was expelled because she refused to counsel homosexual clients. "The university contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics." I understand that they believe she is unlawfully discriminating against people who are doing nothing wrong but living a different lifestyle. But by them ruling against her, THEY ARE DISCRIMINATING AGAINST HER for refusing to support that lifestyle.
As a school counselor, you are supposed to counsel or advise students in what you feel is the best course of action for them. As someone who is opposed to homosexuality, chances are that they will feel the best advice they can give is to change their homosexual lifestyle. By refusing to counsel homosexual clients, I feel that this student who was expelled, while upholding her views against homosexuality, was in fact also trying to prevent potential homosexual clients from being offended by advice she would give that would be contrary to their lifestyle. Since when did it become unethical to refuse to counsel someone you can't honestly counsel? Say she was forced to counsel homosexual clients, and the only counsel she felt she could give was against their lifestyle. Say she cannot, according to her ethics code, counsel them in that way because it is offensive to their lifestyle. Is she supposed to lie to them and offer advice she doesn't agree with? Is that not also unethical? Isn't the best option for her to be able to refuse counsel for such individuals?
It really bothers me that a university would expel a student for something like this. If this spreads, what might happen next? Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, said, "Public universities are imposing the ideological stances of private groups on their students,” he said. “If you don’t comply, you will be kicked out. It’s scary stuff and it’s not a difficult thing to see what’s coming down the pike."
