In today's Springfield News-Leader, Editorial Page Editor Tony Messenger offers the first real examination of Frank Kauffman, the Missouri State University professor who gave the assignment that was at the heart of former student Emily Brooker's lawsuit against the university.
In that lawsuit, which was first publicized in the Oct. 31, 2006, Turner Report, Miss Brooker, a Christian, claims Kauffman ordered her and her classmates to write letters to the state legislature advocating gay adoption.
One point stressed in Messenger's column is that the recent investigation of the school's social work program uncovered serious problems, but none of those involved Kauffman:
The media portrayal of the Brooker-Kauffman conflict is that the liberal associate professor tried to force the Christian student to sign a letter that violated her beliefs. Ever since the conservative Alliance Defense Fund filed the lawsuit on Brooker's behalf, it's how the story has been described in print and on air.
It's not true.
Kauffman notes that Miss Brooker was allowed to do an alternative to the assignment. But Kauffman and Miss Brooker agree that she was subjected to a star chamber interrogation by officials in the social work department:
It was another social work professor — not Kauffman — who suggested in an e-mail to other faculty that Brooker be subjected to the department's "Standards of Essential Functioning" process.
The meeting called wasn't because of Kauffman's class, but questions from more than one professor about Brooker's behavior.
From the day he was hired, Kauffman was no fan of the "SEF" document. It's a list of rules separate from other university academic procedures that lays out potential disciplinary action for students who don't get with the program. The rules have never been applied consistently, Kauffman argues. They shouldn't have been applied in this case.
But they were, and Kauffman — sheepishly, he says — participated. In the SEF hearing, Brooker was subjected to unrelenting questioning about her religious beliefs. She was threatened with not being able to graduate. She was intimidated and scared. It was a pitiful performance for higher education professionals.
It's one of the points upon which Brooker and Kauffman agree.
"That was far worse than what happened in the classroom," Brooker says.
The real problem wasn't Kauffman's liberalism or even his fumbling of some aspects of an assignment but the atmosphere at the social work program that outside observers would later, in a report, call "toxic."
"The toxicity created the environment that allowed the Alliance Defense Fund to take advantage of our lack of professionalism," Kauffman says.
Messenger offers a revealing portrait of Frank Kauffman and a much-needed counterbalance on this story, which started Missouri on the pathway to the recently-passed Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act.
4 comments:
What a poor "victim" Kauffman was!
Bottom line is he still was pressing his agenda and the University jumped right on the bandwagon. They didn't push a purely NonChristian alternative, but were clearly AntiChrisitan. You know, I seem to remember reading that this defense was not effective during the Nuremburg trials.
That we send our kids to these Far Left places of "Higher" learning in their formative years is the crime! They are dropped off on campus and "taught" that they are "closed-minded" and they must be deprogrammed with all the garbage (i.e., Christian values) that they have been "indoctrinated" with by their family and community. The place is like a huge campus creating "Moonies". It's at all "Higher Learning" institutions.
When did it become not only socially acceptable, but requisite that all students should be fed a diet exclusively filled with this diatribe when at the university? Any professor who has a counter viewpoint will have to keep mute until after gaining tenure, or they will be run out of town.
Wat is interesting is how well the liberals paint us conservatives as intolerant. Remind me again, who was intolerant in this situation?
There are times in a social workers life that they have to do things that they don't personally agree with because it's their job. I think that goes for just about any profession.
I have been required to debate sides of issues that I don't agree with at my university. By doing so, I have grown as a person.
What was the real purpose behind the assignment? What it to write the letter or show that a letter could be written from a stand point that wasn't one taken personally by the writer? These are questions that should be answered before we start throwing around the bible and passing laws that repress our educational systems even more.
I might agree if this were a case of "enlightenment", but that "concept" is used for intolerance of Christian values at Universitys in particular all too often.
When you are "required" to do things you find morally reprehensible in your job, it's time to find another job, not find a way to compromise your principles.
And yes, I am old enough and educated enough to understand what I am saying. I have been an officer of large corporations. It doesn't have to be about leaving your personal priciples at the door. The whole concept of compromising ones' principles is obnoxious. If "social work" is that bad a profession, it's time to change it!
The events that led up to the meeting did happen in Dr. Kaufman's class. Did he change the assignment to sign the letter? Read the law suit to see what it took to change the assignment, what the change was, and the time period. Dr. Kauffman did make concessions for Brooker on the assignment after one or more months or asking him. In addition, it is my understanding that students were given choices on the assignment before and after fall semester, 2005.
Dr Nietzel did NOT say that Dr. Kaufman did not do anything. He did say, “to the best of his knowledge, Kauffman isn't one of the faculty members who were the target of the worst criticism in the critical report." So, as another editorial indicates: "By all accounts, he (Kaufman) accepted that he made errors in the handling of an assignment objected to by Brooker. He stood up to public humiliation, and, according to Nietzel, agreed to punishment and remedial action. Kauffman, and others in the school, are considered by some students to be inspiring educators." I applaud Dr. Kaufman for accepting this accepting that he made errors.
Four professors were listed in the lawsuit. It was the university and the news media that singled out Dr. Kaufman by only having him go to meet with Assistant Provost Chris Craig and consistently writing about him and IGNORING the others. Please look at the lawsuit. Again, four professors were listed as defendants that attended the GRIEVANCE meeting. In reviewing SEF policy for the Social Work department, the meeting did not follow university or social work standards.
I am glad that Dr. Kaufman agreed that a grievance did not need to be filed. Brooker did sue because of the grievance meeting. However, the grievance meeting was about the disagreement to sign the letter in Dr. Kaufman's class. He attended the meeting. It does not make any difference if he asked any inappropriate question in the SEF meeting. Also, the lawsuit does not name anyone who asked an inappropriate question in the meeting. It only states the questions that were asked.
One more thing. I do agree with you that NO ONE needs to bash him. I prefer to think that, as he says, he "could have handled the assignment better." It is the "toxic' department that needs to change. I am glad that he wants to be part of changing it. I hope it happens.
I also look forward to an even better Social Work department at MSU. We need it!
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