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Professor Files Lawsuit Against University Requirement to Use Transgender Labels
Professor Nicholas Meriwether has finally had enough.
In June 2018, a warning was put in this professor’s personnel file because he refused to refer to a transgender student, who was biologically male and called himself Alena Breuning, with female personal pronouns.
But Ms. Bruening demanded to be referred to as “Miss” and “she” in accordance with the student’s gender identity, filing a complaint against her professor earlier this year for not accommodating her wishes.
Shawnee State University, a public school in Ohio, requires its staff to refer to a transgender student by his or her preferred gender pronouns.
In spite of the Shawnee State University’s policy, Professor Meriwether, who is an evangelical Christian, filed a lawsuit with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom. They are arguing that his First Amendment rights are being violated. The school and Prof. Meriwether have tried to negotiate a resolution to this issue, but have fallen short of working it out.
In protesting the professor’s lawsuit, another publication, Think Progress, discounts his legal team’s claims as an effort to “discredit the legitimacy of transgender identities”:
They brazenly assert that ‘the concept of gender identity is entirely subjective and fluid,’ that ‘the number of potential gender identities is infinite (with over one hundred different options currently available),’ and that ‘the number of potential pronouns has likewise multiplied in recent years.’ It further claims that “some sources say” a person’s gender identity can be ‘affected by mood swings’ or ‘change depending on which friend you’re with.’
The publication describes Professor Meriwether’s communication style with students:
Meriwether, as it turns out, is very particular about how he communicates with students in his class. Deploying a formal Socratic method, Meriwether always addresses students using formal titles (Mr./Ms./Mrs./Miss) and ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ He believes this is an ‘important pedagogical tool’ to foster ‘an atmosphere of seriousness and mutual respect.’
We have to find a way to encourage and support not only professors in universities, but all conservatives who find these demands unconstitutional and oppressive. Pushing back against these obscene demands is the only way to stop this country from being swallowed up by the Progressive agenda.
In the close of their article, Think Progress made the following comment:
ADF appears to hope that Meriwether’s case will be a vehicle for them to impose a double standard that justifies discrimination against transgender people that wouldn’t otherwise be tolerated against other groups. ADF attorney Tyson Langhofer said in a statement, ‘This isn’t just about a pronoun; this is about endorsing an ideology.’
That is false. It’s about respecting people for who they are.
It’s too bad that respect doesn’t go both ways.
Published in Education
I expressed my philosophical problem with mandated (wrong-)pronoun usage in #26 above. There’s another, humanitarian aspect to consider as well. People who don’t understand their own male or female sexuality are in need of help, not reinforcement in their confusion. Creating rules intended to impose speech control is a way to stifle criticism, including constructive criticism, of what many of us believe is a psychological or emotional problem deserving attention.
They don’t call it a post-erior for nothin’.
Good point – if the student was always right he wouldn’t need school.
True, and this also applies to homosexuality, and related disorders.
Henry,
Please “like” my post “The Worst Deal in History” on the member feed. Huge things are happening in Britain. Lots of cabinet resignations and the Brexiteers may finally go after May for real.
Thanks
Regards,
Jim
From what I’ve been able to learn @henryracette, efforts to suggest that these folks need help range from stifling suggestions to banning them. All they are doing is reinforcing that these legitimate problems are not problems at all, but conditions to be celebrated. It’s tragic.
Joshua, I’m no expert, but I think preferences are different from delusions. Gay men are attracted to men: that’s a preference, not a delusion. They understand that they’re men, they just experience an abnormal sexual attraction. I’m skeptical that that’s something which can, or even should, be “corrected.”
On the other hand, someone who doesn’t understand that he is a man has a problem of understanding, not preference. That, in my opinion, deserves attention, to help him deal with his flawed grasp of reality.
As I said, I think all you wrote in the prior post applies to homosexuality, bisexuality, etc., just as it does to transgenderism. Of course there is a difference between a preference and a delusion. That doesn’t mean those with an abnormal preference don’t need help, and there’s still the problem of the left-wing “speech control” that tries to stifle differing viewpoints.
The idea that same-sex attraction doesn’t need correcting is, of course, wide-spread. I never assented to that, skeptic that I am.
You were the admirable exception. But even still – you weren’t a customer. You were a student. And the students should not run the school.
If the wording bothers you, then fine. If I was not a customer, I was a paying student. I was paying to be instructed, and the paid staff were paid to teach me; not to grossly mislead me with obvious falsehoods.
I don’t think students, paying or otherwise, should run the school. But they certainly deserve a good education.
By the lights of current administration and faculty at most institutions, they’re giving them one.
Then again, if we look at the Progressive agenda and distortions that are taught with it, maybe not.
We are in total agreement about that. And there was a time when that was the understood agreement at every university. But that is sadly no longer the case.
By the lights of the *institution’s* mindset, SQ, not ours, for sure! :-)
You and I disagree, but that’s okay. Other people are welcome to debate it, but it doesn’t interest me. All I’ll add is that I’m making my comments specifically regarding gender diversity, and not sexual preference.
With you here, @henryracette, as most often; it’s the gender-bending that’s at issue here, isn’t it? Not to mention the coercion to conform. Odd among self-perceived non-conformists (as college-students are wont to be).
I wish we could show them how totalitarian they’re behaving. I don’t think they’d take that well.
I’ve come to believe that a great many “freedom loving” people have no problem with totalitarianism as long as they are the ones in charge.
Maybe she likes to be ravaged. Did you ask her? Get written consent before the proceedings?
You might be able to discern her answer if you are attentive to her psithurism.
I think a rational solution is for a determination to see if the same-sex preference is something that 1) can be corrected, and if it can, 2) should be corrected.
I feel quite strongly about the whole gender-fluidity/gender-diversity movement because it’s an effort to compel others to embrace a delusion, a psychological or emotional abnormality.
The case of homosexuality is different. People have all kinds of odd sexual interests and obsessions, of which homosexual attraction is, frankly, one of the least peculiar. (I think same-sex attraction in women is actually quite common, and that many — perhaps most — women experience it to some degree.)
A list of things that people find sexually arousing would be as comical as it is off-putting. (Let’s not start one.) We have an interest in preventing people from pursuing certain sexual interests because doing so would hurt people, but that doesn’t mean that those interests aren’t real. There’s nothing dishonest, nor even delusional, about experiencing a particular attraction. Attraction isn’t belief, merely sensation. I have no doubt that same-sex attraction is, for many, sincerely felt and perfectly honest.
This isn’t to say that every kind of sexual attraction is “normal” for a human being. A great many aren’t, including, from a purely statistical sense, homosexuality: the vast majority of humans are heterosexual, and that’s “normal” for humans. I’ll leave it to others to debate whether abnormal sexual interests and preferences can or should be changed. That debate doesn’t interest me (and I’m skeptical that it’s likely to be productive).
What does interest me is the effort to compel me to play along with someone else’s delusion. A boy who thinks he’s really a girl is deluded. A boy or girl who thinks he or she is neither is similarly deluded. Forcing other people to profess to believe, however halfheartedly, in their delusion is wrong, and that’s the thing to which I object.
The idea that it’s normal for young women to experiment with a Lesbian phase during their college days has become a common TV trope. Whether that’s based on reality is an open question.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/219616.php
OK, I have to know. Was the their/they’re thing intentional?
Spastic fingers + “predictive mode” on a dratted iDevice touch keyboard…Mortified actually. Will rectify above immediately. :-)
They love to non-conform when they’re doing it all together.
So susurration sussings?
To my mind, it’s a matter of who it is a problem for. If a gay dude wants to want women but doesn’t, he has a problem that belongs to him. If a transperson wants to be called by one or another pronoun, it has a problem that belongs to it – but not me. It’s offloading responsibility for identity onto others.
I might consider doing it on a salary.
Fair enough, but attraction can be as benign as ‘wow, she looks hot,’ without any sexual thought at all.
Guys rarely notice that other guys are desirable to any gender whatever.
No one goes there anymore. It’s too crowded. Yogi Berra.