J. RANDAL HALL, District Judge.
Before the Court in the captioned case is Plaintiff Jennifer Keeton's (Plaintiff) motion for preliminary injunction. (Doc. no. 3.) Pursuant to Plaintiff's request, the Court heard oral argument and conducted an evidentiary hearing regarding the motion on August 11, 2010. While Plaintiff may ultimately prevail in this case, the current record reveals that she has failed to clearly establish her high burden of persuasion of a "substantial likelihood" of success on the merits of her case. Therefore, Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, an extraordinary remedy, is
Before discussing the merits of Plaintiff's motion, I would like to briefly address what this case involves. This case is not about the propriety of Plaintiff's views or beliefs, or any of the Augusta State University (ASU) counseling faculty's views or beliefs, regarding the topics implicated in this case. Despite any suggestion to the contrary, this is not a case pitting Christianity against homosexuality. This case is only about the constitutionality of the actions taken by Defendants regarding Plaintiff within the context of Plaintiff's Counselor Education masters degree program at Augusta State University (ASU), and no more.
Because of the limited nature of the issue before the Court at this phase of the litigation, the Court summarizes the salient facts. In the fall of 2009, Plaintiff enrolled in ASU's Counselor Education masters degree program, where she is currently enrolled as a graduate student. Plaintiff's goal is to become a school counselor. The counseling program has adopted as part of its curriculum the American Counseling Associations' (ACA) Code of Ethics, applicable to counselors-in-training.
Plaintiff, a Christian, has voiced her religious-based, personal views on sexual morality—particularly, the morality of homosexual conduct—in classroom discussions, in school papers,
The counseling faculty became concerned that Plaintiff may not be able to separate her personal, religious-based views on sexual morality from her professional counseling duties, in violation of the ACA's Code of Ethics. The faculty further concluded that some of Plaintiff's views on sexual behavior depart from psychological research. (Compl. Ex. B at 3.) The faculty also claim to have received unsolicited reports from a fellow student in the counseling program that Plaintiff "has relayed her interest in conversion therapy for [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (GLBTQ)] populations, and she has tried to convince other students to support and believe her views." (
Based upon these conclusions and pursuant to the counseling program's official policy, Plaintiff was placed on "remediation status" by the program's faculty.
Plaintiff's Remediation Plan has two portions, the first of which centers on Plaintiff's writing composition skills and requires her to complete items one through six in the Remediation Plan.
(Compl. Ex. B at 5.) Plaintiff, after three meetings with the counseling program's faculty,
Plaintiff then decided to sue. Plaintiff's verified complaint and motion for preliminary injunction were filed on Wednesday, July 21, 2010. The verified complaint alleges counts for (1) viewpoint discrimination, retaliation, and compelled speech, in violation of Plaintiff's First Amendment right to freedom of speech, (2) violation of Plaintiff's First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, (3) violation of Plaintiff's right to be free of unconstitutional conditions, (4) violation of Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection, (5) violation of Plaintiff's right to the freedom of speech under ASU's official policies, and (6) violation of Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Plaintiff's prayer requests declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief.
In addition to filing her verified complaint, Plaintiff moved for a preliminary injunction that would prevent her expulsion from ASU's counseling program based upon what she alleges to be violations of her civil rights and relieve her from the terms of the counseling program's allegedly unlawful Remediation Plan. Because of time constraints, Plaintiff did not brief all of her claims for injunctive relief or all the legal bases for the relief she requests in her verified complaint. Plaintiff has, however, briefed several of her asserted causes of action for purposes of the requested preliminary injunction, as follows: First Amendment viewpoint discrimination, violation of the First Amendment compelled speech doctrine, violation of the First Amendment right to belief of one's choice, and First Amendment retaliation.
On August 9, 2010, Defendants responded in opposition to the motion for preliminary injunction. (Doc. no. 35.) Attached to Defendants' response are, inter alia, the affidavits of Dr. Anderson-Wiley, Dr. Paulette Schenck, Assistant Professor of Counselor Education in ASU's counseling program, and Dr. Richard Deaner, Assistant Professor of Counselor Education in ASU's counseling program. (Doc. no. 35, Exs. A, B, & C.) All three professors testified that they never told Plaintiff that she was required to change her religious beliefs in order to stay in the counseling program, and all three stated that, during the course of Plaintiff's participation in the counseling program, they became aware of Plaintiff's admitted reluctance to counsel the GLETQ population. (
Defendants also provided affidavits of two of Plaintiff's classmates in the counseling program. (Resp. Exs. E & H.) Both students took classes with Plaintiff the past two semesters. One of the students testified that "During one . . . discussion outside of the classroom, Plaintiff expressed to me her view that the gay population could be changed and that, as school counselors, we could help them." (Resp. Ex. E ¶ 20) (emphasis in original). The student further testified as follows:
(
(Resp. Ex. H ¶ 19.) The second student continued,
(
On August 11, 2010, per Plaintiff's request, the Court conducted a hearing regarding the motion for preliminary injunction, which included oral argument on the legal issues and testimony from witnesses.
Plaintiff did not testify at the hearing, nor did she present any witnesses in support of her motion. Defendants, however, presented several witnesses to the Court, including Dr. Anderson-Wiley and Dr. Schenck. Dr. Anderson-Wiley testified that, in order for Plaintiff to successfully complete the Remediation Plan, Plaintiff must be willing to refrain, in the counseling setting, consistent with professional counseling ethical rules, from imposing her personal views on a counselee's homosexual conduct. Dr. Anderson-Wiley also testified that Plaintiff is not the only student who has been placed on remediation status in ASU's counseling program, and noted that Remediation Plans are utilized with students in the program with regularity to address various professional deficiencies, including sensitivity to certain populations.
Next, Dr. Schenck testified. She clarified to the Court that, should Plaintiff not agree to complete all terms of the Remediation Plan, Plaintiff would not be allowed to enroll in the practicum portion of the counseling program this fall and would be expelled from the program altogether at the conclusion of the fall semester in December, 2010. Furthermore, Dr. Schenck testified about an encounter she had with Plaintiff that occurred after a class session. At that time, according to Dr. Schenck, she posed a hypothetical counseling scenario to Plaintiff. In the hypothetical, the counselee inquires of Plaintiff as to the morality of homosexual conduct. Plaintiff stated to Dr. Schenck that she would, in such a situation, explain to the counselee that, consistent with Plaintiff's personal views, the conduct is not moral.
Finally, both Dr. Anderson-Wiley and Dr. Schenck testified that the Remediation Plan was crafted for Plaintiff, not as retaliation for voicing her personal beliefs, but only because the faculty questioned Plaintiff's ability to perform as a counselor in a professionally ethical manner, as required by the counseling program's curriculum.
A preliminary injunction may issue only if Plaintiff, the moving party, demonstrates each of the following:
While there is no case satisfactorily on point to definitively control this matter, one thing is clear: the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit have held that matters of educational policy should be left to educators and it is not the proper role of federal judges to second guess an educator's professional judgment.
Furthermore,
The district court applied
With these legal principles in mind, the Court turns to the merits of Plaintiff's motion. The first element Plaintiff must show in order to receive her requested injunction is a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of her lawsuit. In her verified complaint and the instant motion, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants' actions constitute a continuing and irreparable violation of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges claims for First Amendment viewpoint discrimination, violation of the First Amendment compelled speech doctrine, violation of the First Amendment right to belief of one's choice, and First Amendment retaliation. The Court will discuss each claim in turn.
Plaintiff asserts that Defendants have violated her rights arising out of the Speech Clause of the First Amendment, that states, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech. . . ." U.S. Const. amend. I. The First Amendment, as incorporated through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
Plaintiff first claims that Defendants violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment by disciplining Plaintiff based upon her viewpoint. Plaintiff, however, has not established that she is substantially likely to succeed on the merits of this claim.
It is clear that the "government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restrictions."
Furthermore, Plaintiff's refusal to participate in the Plan, which requires her to read counseling literature geared towards counseling GLBTQ persons and attend workshops geared towards that same end, demonstrates Plaintiff's unwillingness to complete curricular requirements. The faculty made clear in various meetings with Plaintiff and through correspondence that it was not Plaintiff's personal beliefs that were their concern, but rather only her inability to separate her personal beliefs in the judgment-free zone of a professional counseling situation, as mandated by the ethical standards incorporated into ASU's curriculum.
Once put on notice of Plaintiff's difficulty with this portion of her professional curriculum, the faculty decided to craft Plaintiff's Remediation Plan—a tool used not only with Plaintiff, but other students as well—in order to address various areas of concern. Whether I would have imposed the Remediation Plan, or what I would have included in the Plan itself, is not the question, for the Supreme Court instructs that educators, not federal judges, are the ones that choose among pedagogical approaches.
That is not to say that in the curricular setting university professors enjoy carte blanche authority to restrict speech, or to punish students due to their speech, with impunity. The Court could, as the Supreme Court has instructed, override the faculty's decision to impose Plaintiff's Remediation Plan if the Plan's imposition "is such a substantial departure from accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or committee responsible did not actually exercise professional judgment."
As discussed above, however, the limited record at this point in the litigation suggests that the Remediation Plan was imposed upon Plaintiff not because of mere disagreement with her viewpoints, but because of Plaintiff's inability to resist imposing her moral viewpoint on counselees, a position contrary to the ethical rules incorporated into the ASU counseling program's curriculum.
Plaintiff next argues that, by requiring her "to affirm the pro-LGBTQ orthodoxy" and submit monthly updates as to how the Remediation Plan has influenced her beliefs, Defendants are violating the First Amendment doctrine of compelled speech. None of the cases Plaintiff cites in support of this claim arise out of the curriculum of a university-level educational program.
The faculty have made clear that their concern is not Plaintiff's personal beliefs, but rather how those beliefs affect Plaintiff's ability to counsel in an ethical manner in accordance with the program's curriculum. This is true regarding Plaintiff's reflection papers, which require that Plaintiff discuss how the Plan has "influenced her beliefs[.]" The record indicates that the belief the faculty is referring to, rather than Plaintiff's personal views on sexual morality, is the belief that Plaintiff's moral view is preferable to a homosexual counselee's moral view, and that therefore Plaintiff ought to tell the counselee as much in a counseling setting. To the extent that Defendants compel Plaintiff to speak at all by requiring that she "affirm" GLBTQ conduct in a counseling setting, they demand nothing more than Plaintiff's adherence to the ACA Code of Ethics, which, as discussed above, appears to be, at this stage of the litigation at least, "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."
Plaintiff also argues that Defendants have violated her rights arising out of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . ." U. S. Const. amend. I (emphasis added) . The Free Exercise Clause has been made applicable to the States by incorporation into the Fourteenth Amendment,
"The free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one desires. Thus, the First Amendment obviously excludes all `governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such.'"
The prevailing constitutional standard under the Free Exercise Clause mandates that "a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice."
The district court applied this standard in
Plaintiff also claims to have been retaliated against for exercising her First Amendment freedoms. To establish a claim in this context, a plaintiff "must establish first, that [her] speech or act was constitutionally protected; second, that the defendant's retaliatory conduct adversely affected the protected speech; and third, that there is a causal connection between the retaliatory actions and the adverse effect on speech."
Plaintiff's refusal to complete the Remediation Plan and her unwillingness to adhere to the ACA Code of Ethics constitute a refusal to complete curriculum requirements. Defendants' reasons for imposing the Remediation Plan appear to be, on the evidence presented, academically legitimate, rather than a mere pretext to retaliate against her for expressing her beliefs. Plaintiff points to no instance in which she was asked to change her personally-held religious beliefs. To the contrary, the record reveals that Plaintiff was asked only to complete the Plan in order to fulfill academic requirements "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."
Because the Court finds that Plaintiff has not clearly carried her high burden in establishing a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of her lawsuit, discussion of the remaining three elements under the preliminary injunction analysis is not necessary.
Upon the foregoing, Plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction (doc. no. 3) is
(Compl. Ex. A at 27.)
Assuming, without deciding, that this is enough to establish a genuine dispute of material fact regarding the faculty's true motivation for imposing the Remediation Plan, it is nevertheless not enough, at this stage of the litigation, to clearly establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.