Eastern Michigan Univ. dismisses student for being anti-gay
So I want to start out with full disclosure about this post... I am a 2008 graduate of Eastern Michigan University in the Higher Education Student Affairs program which is housed in the same department that the counseling program is housed in. During my time at EMU I was the Acting Graduate Student Body President and championed many issues around equal rights for LGBT students.
Now with that being said here we go.......
You can find a few news articles about this story here:
WorldNetDaily
The Eastern Echo
Ann Arbor News
From the Ann Arbor News:
"The Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom says student Julea Ward was dismissed from her graduate program in March after refusing to affirm a client's homosexual behavior prior to a counseling session, according to a press release from the group.
David French, ADF senior counsel, said the school initiated a disciplinary process against Ward despite the fact that she followed her supervising professor's advice and referred the client to a counselor who did not have a conscience issue with homosexuality.
Ward then allegedly was informed that the only way to stay in her program would be to undergo a remediation process to change her beliefs as they relate to counseling about homosexual relationships, the Defense Fund Center said. When she refused, she was given a formal review hearing, after which she was dismissed from the program. The dismissal was upheld March 26 by the dean of EMU's College of Education, the press release said."
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I will say when I first heard about this (I have a google alert for any news story, blog post, etc about EMU) I said GO EMU, stand by our values! However, now I am unsure how I feel. I totally feel anyone who enters the counseling profession has to support LGBT people. On the flip side when the you read about her side of the story it seems all she did was referred the client onto another counselor who would best help that client, since she does not support people being gay. So what is wrong with her telling someone it would be best to see someone else? The other question that is riased in my mind is - was she doing this because she knows that if she counseled the client and told them that being gay was wrong she would face much larger issues since she was being watched by a professor during the counseling sessions? But what will happen when she is not under the watchful eye of a professor? Would she advise a client to see someone else or would she counsel the client that being gay is wrong? I am not sure I want to take that chance! So in the end I do support the decision of EMU based on ethics, however on the legal side I am unsure if it will hold up in the courts.
What are your thoughts? I welcome a great debate on this topic! :)
4 comments
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According to the article, it
According to the article, it isn't at all about what she might do, it's very much about what she did. She refused treatment to someone because she didn't agree with their condition... in exactly the place where someone should be for counseling on that type of identity crisis or concern. In the healthcare field there is very much a pervasive idea that you will treat whatever comes through that door. You aren't there to pass judgment or pick and choose, just to heal. That applies to mental heath providers as well, at least in my experience. To me what is more unfair is the possibility of exposing someone with a very real problem to someone who will at best defer the problem (at worst, who knows) under the guise of a degree and a license and a position that is supposed to invoke trust and confidence.
LGBT issues are a very real and widespread concern, and if you can't handle those patients walking through your clinic doors then you're very much in the wrong field, and in that capacity I think that EMU was justified in weeding out a potentially dangerous provider.
So you would support a
So you would support a student being dismissed from a program not based on what she has actually done, but what you are afraid she might do? Even though it wouldn't survive a legal challenge? That doesn't seem to be very fair to me.
Personally, I have to agree
Personally, I have to agree with the decision to dismiss her. While I was active duty, I had patients of my own in our outpatient mental health clinic. I did intakes, walk-ins, and I even got to follow up with some of the patients I brought into the clinic. I remember once a patient came into our walk-in clinic with suicidal ideation, because he felt he couldn't live knowing that he was sexually attracted to children. This is an intense case, and it showed. None of the techs on staff at the front felt that they could do an interview with him, because they were so repulsed by the idea. The thing is though, when you're a mental health counselor of any type, you have to be the one who can step outside of what you think and feel and put yourself in the client's shoes. I saw this patient, and treated him as I was taught... that he's "just a normal person faced with abnormal circumstance." And he was. He was a decent man whose brain was wired in a way that would disgust everyone around him, and disgusted him, so much so that he thought the only way to fix it was to end his life. To be at all effective in this field you have to be able to leave yourself at the door, because the person inside that room needs your unbiased help. Yeah, it's hard... but if you can't do it I think you need to find a different occupation. If someone comes in and needs help dealing with their homosexuality and you say "I don't agree with that lifestyle, so I'm going to transfer you to someone more suited to deal with this issue", or even something like "I'm not experienced enough in this particular area to be of assistance so I need to refer to you someone who deals with this specifically"... either way you've given a heavy negative reinforcement to someone who already has a full plate. If you go to a mental health clinic and they say you need a specialist, it's basically saying "You're a kind of crazy even we aren't prepared to deal with." It's just bad medicine. If your job is to give anger management to wife beaters, counseling to sexual deviants, and help in all number of other intense cases, you can't pick and choose what is okay to walk in your door- you have to take whatever walks into that room and do everything you can to make that person's life better.
Also, when this particular article says "prior to the counseling session" does that mean she got the chart as they were in the waiting room and said "I can't do this?" So a patient was turned away and rescheduled, possible after waiting weeks for an appointment, having to wait weeks more for a new intake, and possibly in crisis? So, say it takes two weeks to get an appointment. This person can't deal anymore, calls for an appointment. "Thanks for calling so and so, just hold on two weeks and we can help you." They come in, and are turned away, and told "Two more weeks... just hold on." That's four weeks going through something alone that the patient already feels like they can't handle anymore. Access to care is a huge issue in mental health. To turn someone away entirely is ridiculous, and this article makes it sound like she couldn't see the patient AT ALL because of their orientation... and if that's the case yeah she definitely needed to go, and I'm glad the program was able to catch an issue like that.
Professionalism
I believe that there is one issue that is the concern of both sides of this story, counter-transference. A therapist or counselor’s experience of a subject (I say this because it is not limited to the realm of crisis or psychological counseling, so patient may not be the best choice) can affect the help that is given as well as the health of the counselor. She may not have felt that she could have delivered the treatment that would promote healthy transference (becoming a healthier or more positive version of a patient’s past) to help this patient.
This also raises a question of professional ethics. As reported, it seems unclear as to her specific reasoning for referring the patient to another professional. Without specific answers it would be unfair to conclude her motives. Generally, this would be the right move to refer this individual to a specialized or more experienced individual, so was this some Hawthorne-like result of being observed, who knows.
In so far as her dismissal, it seems to me she may have made some sort of professional error, either in how she executed this referral or otherwise. While it seems her beliefs regarding homosexuality are cited, the reason for remediation could have been her lack of professional separation and self-judgment in her ability to counsel.
Personally, if she made an error in her professional procedure and separation then without a doubt she needs remediation. While this deals specifically with her feelings on homosexuality, I do not support her dismissal on the grounds that she would not affirm homosexuality specifically. I do agree however, that if there was a lack of professionalism with regard to her own bias then she is unable to be an effective counselor.
I counsel students on a daily basis (financially) while there is very little in the way of transference much less treatment, I cannot let my feelings or beliefs get in the way of the quality and effort I put into their interaction. So regardless of their background, their program of study, or what they hope to do with their degree I cannot nor am I willing to alter the level of service I give because I do not wish to have that happen to me. I am a professional and a person just like any other and should be afforded the same respect and rights as others regardless of the fact that I am a professional and a person who happens to be gay, and yes I am proud of it.
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