I’ll Tell You What…

From the ACLJ:

June 6

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which specializes in constitutional law, today demanded that a community college in California reverse a low grade given to a student who was punished for including a reference to God in a paper written for an English class.

“It is absolutely unbelievable that a student would be punished for presenting a thoughtful and well written paper that included references to God,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which is representing the student. “The actions by the instructor reflect a profound hostility toward religious expression and his actions clearly violate the constitutional rights of our client. We are demanding that the college immediately remove the low grade given for this paper and order the instructor to end his discriminatory treatment, and apologize to the student for his actions. We are giving the school an opportunity to correct this injustice before federal litigation is considered.”

The ACLJ today sent a letter to Patricia Spencer, President of Victor Valley Community College in Victorville, CA regarding an incident involving adjunct instructor Michael Shefchik and his actions toward student Bethany Hauf. The issue revolves around an assignment given to an English class by Shefchik.

Hauf notified the instructor that her topic for the research paper would be “Religion and Its Place within the Government.” In an email to Hauf, Shefchik, a self-described atheist, said the topic was within the bounds of the assignment. However, he put one troubling condition on Hauf’s paper: “I have one limiting factor,” wrote Shefchik, “no mention of the big “G” gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation.” After pursuing this topic and presenting a draft of the paper to Shefchik, as required by course requirements, Hauf was told that, at best, because she had written off topic about God, she would be graded 69 out of a possible 100 points. Shefchik told Hauf that among the reasons for the low grade was that references to “God” could be offensive. After presenting her paper on Friday, Shefchik handed out the final grade on Monday and gave Hauf a score of 49 out of a possible 100 points for the research paper.

Hauf’s paper included a thoughtful and historical look at the role that God and religion have played in the formation of our country and government.

In a letter sent today to the college president, the ACLJ contends the actions of the instructor violate the First Amendment rights of Hauf including numerous rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States which safeguard student speech and expression. The ACLJ is demanding that the discriminatory treatment of Hauf by Shefchik cease, that the instructor recalculate and reverse the scoring for the paper, and that the instructor apologize to Hauf for his discriminatory treatment of her views. The ACLJ letter states: “It is imperative that this situation be corrected immediately to avoid possible litigation in federal court.”

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice specializes in constitutional law. The ACLJ is based in Washington, D.C.
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