A university pays $400K to professor who refused to use a student's pronouns
npr.org
npr.org
The university saying they did not deprive him of his free speech rights seems pretty false given the contents of the article.
Students aren't customers. Otherwise professors would only issue good grades. Second if professors are deemed "employees" then employees have rights.
What right does the employer has to violate my religious rights? And students aren't customers.
>>There is a fundamental tension between applying the student as customer paradigm vs. society as customer paradigm to higher education. If students are the customer, then the retail model requires them to be right. The aphorism “The customer is always right” is the guiding principle. Some faculty members express experiencing a tacit pressure to relax standards based on serving the student as a customer. Customer-service logic suggests: A grades make happy students; happy students are good customers; good customers are repeat customers; repeat customers tell friends; referrals are good for business.
Yet students are not always right. And neither are universities. Not fully understanding who the customer is in higher education tends toward granting students academic concessions. At four-year colleges, the A grade has increased between five and six percentage points every decade for the last 30 years and is now three times more prevalent than in 1960. Today, the A is the most common grade at four-year institutions. Some students and parents believe that, if they complain enough, a faculty member will change a grade. And if the faculty does not, then they call the manager.
The retail model is not only about grades. Most retail establishments maintain return and exchange policies when customers are not satisfied. Students erroneously try to apply the same policies. I’ve had students who have argued, “I paid for this class and didn’t get anything out of it, so I shouldn’t have to pay.” Usually at semester’s end, a number of students inquire about getting refunds for classes they want to drop because they may not pass the class. Most recently, I encountered a graduate student who wanted a “store credit” for a class that she never completed to be applied to a different class in an upcoming semester<<
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/06/05/higher-ed-sh....
Based on the article, the actions taken against him are a direct responce to his speech and his, stated, religions beliefs.
And given that the courts sided with him, I am led to believe that this incident is on the "infringed free speech" side of the spectrum.
>Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against employees or applicants for employment because of their religious beliefs in hiring, firing and other terms and conditions of employment. Additionally, Title VII requires federal agencies to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs or practices of employees or applicants unless doing so would impose an undue hardship upon the agency.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/inter...
> According to ADF, the university ruled that Meriwether should use the student's correct pronouns — which Meriwether argued spoke "contrary to his religious convictions and philosophical beliefs."
I would think there would need to be actual religious grounds for the claim, which I don't believe there are. No religion I'm aware of says you can't address someone by the pronouns for their preferred gender identity. Can you really just say "religion!" and then do whatever you want?
> Although the philosophy professor offered to use the student’s preferred first or last name, and university officials initially agreed that was an acceptable compromise, officials then changed course and forced Dr. Meriwether either to speak what he believed to be untrue or to remain silent, all contrary to his own Christian convictions and philosophical beliefs.
The argument appears to be that Meriwether does not believe the student's preferred pronoun is correct, and using it would therefore be a falsehood which violates his Christian belief.
Whether or not you can do so really depends on what "religion!" you're actually claiming, and the biases of the people involved in trying your case.
What this kind of thing _usually_ signals in the US is "a conservative Christian is discriminating against an LGBT person in some way, and claiming that their first amendment freedom of religion rights are being violated if they aren't allowed to continue discriminating."
And basically that succeeds sometimes, because Christianity is the dominant religion in the country; but more so because the vocal part of Christianity that is rabidly anti-LGBT is surprisingly well-funded and surprisingly oft-found in places that matter. In this case, the federal court of appeals.
2. If a school accepts public funds it capitulates it's private ownership
3. the professor tried to compromise multiple times.
I am usually on the side of the student in these situations. Although I'm not religious I can understand how it's abusive to both sides, but only one side tried to compromise.
It's a base level of respect to address people as the ask to be addressed. The student was within reason to complain but it never should have gone past a direct conversation w/ admin on standards of behavior.
Depends. If you ask me to use "Allah" as your pronoun, as an hypothetical Muslim, it could violate my religious rights and I might not want to do it. The whole made up pronouns thing has absolutely nothing to do with correct English.
> whole made up pronouns thing has absolutely nothing to do with correct English
she/he are not made up, and language is constantly changing based on what's being spoken by the population.
Considering that there's a lot of hate being fomented against trans people, I'm assuming the professor was passive aggressively saying "fuck you" to that person's stated identity.
A simple solution would be to eliminate all gendered pronouns in English and stick to "they/them" for everybody. Made up pronouns are an absurd trend.
Whether the student is trans isn’t a pertinent factor, after all the government officially recognizes the right to change sex/gender (such as on your driver’s license)
And then secondly, if a student dislikes it, and addresses the (male?) professor as Ma'am, does that student have equal protection from all consequences?