Judge sides with student punished for criticizing lesbians

The University of New Mexico and one of its professors will face trial on a charge of violating the constitutional rights of a student punished for expressing her opinions about lesbianism in a class described by the instructor as having “controversy built right into the syllabus.”

Chief U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo denied a motion by the university to dismiss a case brought by student Monica Pompeo, who claimed she was improperly dismissed from the class for describing lesbianism as perverse in an assigned critique of a lesbian romance film.

The course, “Images of (Wo)men: From Icons to Iconoclasts,” was taught by professor Caroline Hinkley in 2012.

Judge Armijo, in her Sept. 29 order, wrote that the First Amendment “violation in this case arises from the irreconcilable conflict between the all-views-are-welcome description of the forum and [the professor's] only-those-views-with-which-I-personally-agree-are-acceptable implementation of the forum.”

Hinkley wrote in the syllabus: “It’s quite clear that we do not expect anyone to necessarily agree with the positions and arguments advanced in our work. There’s controversy built right into the syllabus, and we can’t wait to hash out our differences.”

But when she assigned students to watch and write about “Desert Hearts,” a 1985 lesbian romance film, Pompeo said Hinckley refused to read beyond the first two pages of her harsh critique. The professor described Pompeo’s opinion as “inflammatory and offensive” hate speech and said it would be in her best interest to drop the class.

The movie, set in the 1950s, tells the story of a woman who arrives to get a divorce and “finds herself increasingly drawn” to another woman, “an open and self-assured lesbian.”

A decision favoring the student in this case, were it to run the full judicial road, would be disastrous for ALL colleges/universities across the USA that fill their catalogs with courses just like this one.

I don’t think private schools would be exempt from this because of the way the course was advertised. Tho, possibly, a “Christian” college wouldn’t offer this type course in the first place.

Imagine if this suit succeeded in renewing freedom of speech to college campuses. What a culture shock that would be. It’s been what? 50+ years?

“where one should not speak if one has views that could be deemed controversial or offensive.”

If the administration uses the word “offensive”, they mean it is bad and won’t be allowed.

If the administration uses the word “controversial”, they mean it is good and will be allowed.

David Horowitz is offensive. The Vagina Monologues is controversial.

Teaching that abstinence is the ONLY form of birth control that works 100% of the time is the ONLY lessons on sex that children need be taught and homosexuality is NOT an option. But then this would require teaching children good, clean, wholesome, God fearing values that most people seem afraid to admit exist.
But what do I know. My wife and I have only worked our asses off to raised four children, three boys and a girl, each home-schooled and who later all tested in to their respective University's Honor's programs. Three of them are now professional ballet dancers, all of them are "straight" and none of them have spawned an illegitimate child (bastard for short.)
They were each taught to save themselves for their future spouse. The oldest is now a married father of one. The other three are still engrossed in their careers.

Point is my wife and I have practiced what we preach and have the results as evidence that our God fearing abstinence education works.

More people need to grow a spine and teach their children the truth. There is more to life than screwing everything that walks.
But then this is just my humble opinion. If all ya'll want your children saddled with fatherless children or your grand children sucked into some blender and thrown away just keep teaching your babies to practice "safe sex". Give them all the condoms their little hearts can handle and/or give your daughters birth control pills and watch them, 30 or forty years from now, shrivel up and die from some grotesque form of cancer, be it breast, ovarian, uterine,.... that the ingredients in birth control substances cause.
I personally want to have my children living happy, healthy, innocent (don't mistake innocence with naivety), clean, long lives.

I am not interested in outliving my children. Sorry... I'm kinda selfish like that.

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