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I have been suspended from school over faith.
Bandetta
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
........Or rather, lack thereof.
I just came back from a meeting with the Dean. I am apparently forbidden from setting foot on campus for 4 days pending a meeting with the dean of education. How did this happen? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's what happened, down to every detail I can remember:
Last week I came to class and sat down to my project group, and one girl named Lacy was discussing her spirituality with other students in the group. I enjoy discussing philosophy but lean towards the skeptical, and so knowing full well that it's a touchy subject, I was extra careful to be polite as I joined the discussion. Lacy laid out her beliefs in "energy layers" and "astral beings" and such, and I jokingly asked her if she believed in leprechauns. It turns out, she does. They live on another energy layer. She went on to explain how this all tied into and was proven by string theory. In the interest of bringing my own view to the discussion, I began to ask her how she knew these things. Again I know all too well that people can be sensitive about their spiritual beliefs, so I was pretty much walking on glass as I did so. I carefully and respectfully explained burden of proof, negative existential default, Occam's Razor etc. Not to disprove her beliefs (which were unfalsifiable anyhow) but to convince her not to insist that they were scientifically proven.
So this week I get called to the Dean's office, where the teacher of that class is sitting down with the Dean, the Associate Dean, the Dean of Student Affairs.....a pretty powerful bunch. The Associate Dean is a heavy set Southern Baptist gal, complete with accent, so I had a sense that I was about to get it hard and fast even before I sat down. My teacher told the group that Lacy had come to her in tears, as in having a total emotional breakdown. Lacy had told her that I was a monster, and that she was afraid of me. I had heard from others that she was emotionally fragile but I didn't think that a friendly discussion between students about philosophy would offend her so deeply. Lacy asked that I be excluded from the project group, so I offered to form a new group with a friend of mine who was in the old group. He was all for it, but the teacher insisted that I would be made to work on my own project, by myself. (This was before the decision to suspend me was made)
Perhaps not realizing the severity of my situation, I tried to defend myself by pointing out that I had only offered a different viewpoint in a discussion that she had started. They didn't respond well. Their mantra was "no discussing religion in school", which is fine except that I did not initiate the conversation, she had. We didn't even really mention any specific religion, we'd just debated about whether or not her beliefs were science as she felt they were. This did not phase the group. Three of them, two of which had not been there at the time, insisted to me that I had verbally attacked Lacy. I had not, and I produced an eyewitness to attest to this. They would not hear from him, and turned him away.
I am meeting with the dean of education in four days. I have already contacted another student who was there, who participated in the conversation with me, and he is willing to attest to the fact that I neither initiated the discussion nor was I anything but civil during the process. All that all I ever did was disagree with a fellow student's opinion. If I can establish this fact to the satisfaction of the dean, I have nothing to worry about.
Here's hoping the dean of education is willing to listen.
I just came back from a meeting with the Dean. I am apparently forbidden from setting foot on campus for 4 days pending a meeting with the dean of education. How did this happen? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's what happened, down to every detail I can remember:
Last week I came to class and sat down to my project group, and one girl named Lacy was discussing her spirituality with other students in the group. I enjoy discussing philosophy but lean towards the skeptical, and so knowing full well that it's a touchy subject, I was extra careful to be polite as I joined the discussion. Lacy laid out her beliefs in "energy layers" and "astral beings" and such, and I jokingly asked her if she believed in leprechauns. It turns out, she does. They live on another energy layer. She went on to explain how this all tied into and was proven by string theory. In the interest of bringing my own view to the discussion, I began to ask her how she knew these things. Again I know all too well that people can be sensitive about their spiritual beliefs, so I was pretty much walking on glass as I did so. I carefully and respectfully explained burden of proof, negative existential default, Occam's Razor etc. Not to disprove her beliefs (which were unfalsifiable anyhow) but to convince her not to insist that they were scientifically proven.
So this week I get called to the Dean's office, where the teacher of that class is sitting down with the Dean, the Associate Dean, the Dean of Student Affairs.....a pretty powerful bunch. The Associate Dean is a heavy set Southern Baptist gal, complete with accent, so I had a sense that I was about to get it hard and fast even before I sat down. My teacher told the group that Lacy had come to her in tears, as in having a total emotional breakdown. Lacy had told her that I was a monster, and that she was afraid of me. I had heard from others that she was emotionally fragile but I didn't think that a friendly discussion between students about philosophy would offend her so deeply. Lacy asked that I be excluded from the project group, so I offered to form a new group with a friend of mine who was in the old group. He was all for it, but the teacher insisted that I would be made to work on my own project, by myself. (This was before the decision to suspend me was made)
Perhaps not realizing the severity of my situation, I tried to defend myself by pointing out that I had only offered a different viewpoint in a discussion that she had started. They didn't respond well. Their mantra was "no discussing religion in school", which is fine except that I did not initiate the conversation, she had. We didn't even really mention any specific religion, we'd just debated about whether or not her beliefs were science as she felt they were. This did not phase the group. Three of them, two of which had not been there at the time, insisted to me that I had verbally attacked Lacy. I had not, and I produced an eyewitness to attest to this. They would not hear from him, and turned him away.
I am meeting with the dean of education in four days. I have already contacted another student who was there, who participated in the conversation with me, and he is willing to attest to the fact that I neither initiated the discussion nor was I anything but civil during the process. All that all I ever did was disagree with a fellow student's opinion. If I can establish this fact to the satisfaction of the dean, I have nothing to worry about.
Here's hoping the dean of education is willing to listen.
Bandetta on
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anyway, separation of church and state in schools only applies to preventing schools from advocating a religion as part of its business. It has no application to private conversations between students, and can't even restrict informal study or prayer groups set up by students on school grounds. Lawyer up, and call the news.
My thought is that if a lawyer gets called in, they'll back down. On the other hand, four days off school sounds pretty cool.
So that it might be debated or discussed. Oh, and I'll take your advice.
It's a college.
Somehow I'm betting we'd get a different story.
Actually I am calling on the other two participants of the conversation as eyewitnesses, as they have already agreed that I did nothing wrong.
There's really not much else to say, dude. We only have your side of the story, its fully cut and dried what you should do. If you want us to, I don't know, talk about the way educational admin staff are often reactionary gits, fine, but you need to actually say that.
I agree, to be honest. Does that make it right the way they reacted? Absolutely not. Their reaction is ridiculous.
That being said, it should be pointed that when a person is sharing an aspect of their faith or spirituality or personal beliefs or whatever, that doesn't necessarily open the floor for you to challenge them or make belittling comments. Sometimes people, prompted or without prompt, merely want to share their views on the subject and aren't interested into getting into an academic debate as to why they believe as they do or trying to justify or prove it to others.
I'm sure she was making statements that rang to you as false and misleading, and all you wanted was clarity on the issue and try to make a point about statements like saying something is "proven", but that clearly wasn't what she was looking for and you went with it anyway.
Doesn't make it your fault, but it's something you should definitely be more aware of, and if anything can be gained from this unfortunate circumstance I would hope it would be that.
and if she had been talking about how fags and their sympathizers are going to burn in hell for all eternity?
get mad morlock in here.
"I didn't see shit."
THen she would be deep in shit.
Rule Number 1: Stupid hypotheticals are stupid hypotheticals.
I'm not saying there's no way it can be true, it's just quite possible that it's not
That's ok you see, because the Bible says that Gays are evil and also says it's the word of God. As the word of God is true (Because everything God says is true) then that makes the Bible the word of God and therefore true. Ergo, when the Bible says the Gays are evil then that must also be true.
At least that's what the nice man from Destiny Church, who wore black outfits and protested outside of parliament said.
She would've probably caught shit for hate speech. Maybe. Depending on how liberal the college is and stuff. I figure, considering they are taking the side of energy layer gal over occam's razor guy, they'd probably be the sort who didn't stand for people being angrily anti-gay.
I hate to admit this, as much as I love a good story of the man oppressing someone unfairly, I just don't know if I believe this. If this is the case, you seriously need to go to the press or get a lawyer, because you've had one hell of a boning.
That's about the size of it.
It's a private art college.
it would just be an innocuous statement of her belief. it doesn't mean we all should jump on her for something like that.
Human or Leprechaun?
but if that's so than the koran couldn't be true. but we know the koran is true. don't you see? your logic eats itself!
But this is just ridiculous.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
My art school is actually pretty liberal and has a very strict anti-intolerance policy. The purpose of the upcoming suspension hearing will be to determine whether or not my disagreeing with Lacy's spiritual convictions consitutes hate speech.
Oh man. You have to tell all this to the ACLU. They will get you an attorney and everything. The story is just writing itself.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
hate speech
Ahahahahahahaha!....Im sorry. I had to get that out.
Sounds like your going a good route. Lawyers and witnesses. See if the lawyer can recommend some organizations that would be interested in this. ACLU is the first to come to mind. Seems like their kind of thing. http://www.aclu.org/affiliates/ That link gives a list of state locations to contact.
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)