{"id":1090,"date":"2023-07-29T13:31:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T13:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2023-07-29T13:31:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T13:31:20","slug":"southern-illinois-university-edwardsville-agrees-to-pay-80000-to-christian-student-for-slapping-her-with-a-no-contact-order-over-her-pro-police-and-pro-kyle-rittenhouse-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2023\/07\/29\/southern-illinois-university-edwardsville-agrees-to-pay-80000-to-christian-student-for-slapping-her-with-a-no-contact-order-over-her-pro-police-and-pro-kyle-rittenhouse-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Illinois University Edwardsville agrees to pay $80,000 to Christian student for slapping her with a ‘no contact order’ over her pro-police and pro-Kyle Rittenhouse views"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12350093\/Maggie-DeJong-SIUE-Southern-Illinois-University-Edwardsville.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southern Illinois<\/a> University Edwardsville has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former graduate student, after the school hit her with a ‘no contact’ order barring communication with classmates who objected to her conservative views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie R. DeJong was a grad student in art therapy when, according to a suit she filed last year, SIUE used the ‘no contact’ order to muzzle her speech and effectively ban her from classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit alleged that the publicly funded school’s\u00a0Director of Art Therapy Megan A. Robb encouraged three of DeJong’s classmates to report her Christian and conservative views to administrators as ‘harmful,’ resulting in the ban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of a settlement reached on Wednesday, SIUE agreed to pay $80,000 and require three professors to attend a First Amendment training session, according to legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented DeJong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Public universities can’t punish students for expressing their political and religious viewpoints,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Mathew Hoffmann in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Southern<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by former grad student Maggie R. DeJong (above) and will pay $80,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Director<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit alleged that the publicly funded school’s Director of Art Therapy Megan A. Robb encouraged three of DeJong’s classmates to report her Christian and conservative views to administrators as ‘harmful,’ resulting in the ban\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Maggie, like every other student, is protected under the First Amendment to respectfully share her personal beliefs, and university officials were wrong to issue gag orders and silence her speech,’ the attorney added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement, SIUE Chancellor James T. Minor acknowledged the settlement without confirming financial details, and insisted the school maintained an ‘unwavering defense of free speech.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘I trust that most people who care about these issues will see beyond the sensationalism of click bait, media reports, and headlines in search of a more complete understanding of the facts,’ said Minor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘SIUE is unequivocally committed to protecting First Amendment rights and does not have policies that restrict free speech nor support censorship,’ the chancellor added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeJong’s allegations were outlined in a 51-page federal lawsuit filed in May 2022, which in addition to Robb named SIUE administrator Jamie Ball and the school’s former chancellor Randall G. Pembrook as defendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the lawsuit, under SIUE Art Therapy program’s ‘anti-oppressive framework,’ DeJong’s speech in the classroom and on social media was often seen as ‘harmful’ by classmates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three classmates in particular took issue with DeJong’s views on religion, race, public safety, and other controversial social topics, according to the suit, which identified the other students only by their initials.

On one occasion, a classmate privately messaged DeJong on Instagram after she uploaded a post about her religion.The original post said: ‘Don’t be deceived by [n]ew age practices.’\u00a0The classmate messaged her privately, accusing her of ‘saying a person’s belief system is wrong.’She replied: ‘You ask a very good question [S.W.]:) In a relativist society, that can be viewed that way. But my personal held beliefs are grounded in objective truth by the gospel of Jesus Christ.\u00a0‘My belief compels me to call out evil that holds people in spiritual bondage. You can totally disagree with me, and that is your right:) But it is out of love that I call this out.’\u00a0DeJong then says her words were used in that student’s art project which was titled ‘The Crushing Weight of Microaggressions.’\u00a0In February 2021, she came to class wearing a pro-police, ‘Back the Blue’ hat, and says that Robb, the professor, pointed out the hat and asked her to explain herself, according to the suit.\u00a0DeJong said that she was wearing the hat to show her support for law enforcement and explained her belief that defunding the police would hurt society, and refused to take it off even as fellow students argued that it was a symbol of oppression.The suit claims that months later, Robb brought up the issue of the pro-police hat in a classroom discussion, prompting classmates to renew their criticism of DeJong.The classmates expressed how the hat was ‘unsafe,’ comparing DeJong\u2019s wearing the hat to someone eating peanut butter near a person who is allergic to peanuts, according to the suit.’We all have to censor ourselves because we have to keep the peace. We have to do what is best for the general public,’ one classmate allegedly explained to DeJong.<\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> \"DeJong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12350093\/Maggie-DeJong-SIUE-Southern-Illinois-University-Edwardsville.html Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former graduate student, after the school hit her with a ‘no contact’ order barring communication with classmates who objected to her conservative views. Maggie R. DeJong…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}