Remember the MA student who refused to counsel homosexual clients because of her religious views and who was asked to leave, the one who turned around and sued EMU? As reported in the Detroit News (and repeated in Annarbor.com), “EMU student’s lawsuit dismissed.” Here’s kind of a long quote from a short article that sums up the federal court’s decision:
Julea Ward sued the university in 2009, alleging violation of her First Amendment< and religious rights.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh ruled in favor of the university and granted it summary judgment.
"The university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics into its counseling program, not the least of which was the desire to offer an accredited program," Steeh said in a 48-page opinion.
"Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring its students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values.
"In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs -- including homosexual relationships."
I didn’t get around to posting it here, but I did come across a couple articles the other day that discussed similar lawsuits against counseling programs at other universities. It seems that EMU is actually but of one of many institutions that have had to fend off these kind of suits.
Hmm, rational basis test eh? The test is strict scrutiny when evaluating fundamental rights under the Constitution – important purpose with necessary means (higher standard than whether or not the school has a rational basis for its action)
This could be either a circumstance of bad lawyering on the plaintiff’s part (not advocating for the higher standard), or bad judicial application on the District Ct’s part (not noticing that the APA Code allows for counselors to reject clients based on conflicting values).
I would expect to see an appeal to the Circuit Ct.