\n<\/p>\n
Utah representative Mike Petersen was inspired to introduce new legislation after receiving a call from his daughter, a master\u2019s student in social work in Louisiana. She was disturbed that a professor had asked the class to write to a local lawmaker in favor of LGBTQ rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u00a0\u2026 said, \u2018Dad, I just got told I needed to write a letter to my legislator advocating for some policies that don\u2019t align with me,\u2019\u201d Peterson said. She didn\u2019t raise her concerns to the instructor \u201cbecause she was afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petersen has since sponsored a bill, passed by the Utah Legislature this month, that would allow students in the state to opt out of some coursework that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The legislation now awaits the governor\u2019s signature. <\/p>\n
The bill creates a process by which students at Utah public colleges and universities could request to skip upcoming assignments for a mandatory class or major requirement that go against a \u201csincerely held religious or conscience belief.\u201d For example, a student could ask in advance to opt out of watching a sexually explicit film required on a course syllabus. A professor who denies a student\u2019s request would have to explain the decision to a \u201cneutral arbiter\u201d assigned by the university, according to the bill. That person would assess whether nixing the assignment\u2014or subbing in an alternative\u2014counts as a \u201cfundamental alteration\u201d to the class\u2019s learning objectives.<\/p>\n
The bill also states that professors can\u2019t \u201ccompel a student to publicly take or communicate a specified position,\u201d such as requiring them to write a letter to a lawmaker or publish an article espousing a particular viewpoint. <\/p>\n
The bill leaves it to the Utah Higher Education Board to come up with more specific guidance on how these policies should be applied and requires the board to report back to the Legislature on how implementation goes. <\/p>\n
The legislation would be the first of its kind to extend conscientious objection to higher education, though Petersen sees the bill as an extension of a previous law he advanced in 2024 that allows state government employees to abstain from work activities they object to on moral grounds. He emphasized that Utah\u2019s state Constitution includes a provision that \u201cthe rights of conscience will never be infringed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have to live up to that promise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Laura Benitez, state manager for U.S. free expression programs at PEN America, a free speech advocacy organization, worries the law could compel professors to change the assignments they give their students, out of fear of heightened scrutiny from university leaders and state lawmakers. She also argued the bill chips away at professors\u2019 authority to decide what materials and activities they use to teach based on their expertise. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider this bill to be an infringement on academic freedom, having sincere, significant consequences on professors\u2019 ability to make decisions about what they can teach and assign in the classroom,\u201d Benitez said. \u201cA professor\u2019s choices about how to achieve the learning outcomes of the course is part of what academic freedom is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robin Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who helped craft and present the bill, said she believes academic freedom should be \u201cbalanced off\u201d by the needs of students \u201ctrapped\u201d in a course\u2014and if that makes faculty reconsider certain assignments, so be it. She compared students with conscientious objections to students with post-traumatic stress disorder who might want an alternative to violent material.<\/p>\n
As faculty, \u201cI think it\u2019s OK for us to be checked sometimes,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a mechanism for faculty to kind of stop for a moment and consider what the experience of their students might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also believes the law can prevent conflicts over course material from blowing up. She cited a recent incident at Texas A&M University, in which a student filmed an argument with a professor over reading material related to gender identity, resulting in the firing of the professor and two administrators. Wilson argued that a public battle\u2014or a student quietly suffering moral discomfort\u2014is less likely if there\u2019s a process in place to handle these types of student objections.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to have parties work things out\u201d because \u201cthey\u2019re going to have someone in the room that can lower the temperature of that conversation\u201d\u2014the neutral arbiter, she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need that in the newspapers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics of the bill also worry that students may opt out of readings and assignments that force them to engage with alternative perspectives in a way that could hamper their education.<\/p>\n
Students benefit from \u201cassignments that really require you to engage in critical thinking and grapple with perspectives and opinions that are different from your own\u2014and sometimes that involves putting yourselves in the shoes of someone who you disagree with,\u201d Benitez said. \u201cTo take away the professor\u2019s ability to put students in that situation [is] a disservice\u201d and a \u201cbetrayal and a mistrust of students\u2019\u00a0\u2026 ability to actually grapple with things that they are going to grapple with out in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petersen believes the provision that an accommodation can\u2019t be a \u201cfundamental alteration\u201d to a course will prevent students from getting out of assignments that would benefit them. Universities have veto power.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t say, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a climatologist, but I don\u2019t want to take a class on climate change,\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m going to study nursing, but I don\u2019t want to learn about how to give a shot because I\u2019m an antivaxxer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t work for that.\u201d In a similar vein, \u201cI don\u2019t think learning about evolution is going to violate someone\u2019s conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in some cases, there\u2019s more than \u201cone way for a student to learn the information, and maybe we could be just a little more creative, a little more thoughtful about that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Charles Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and research professor of law at the University of Dayton, said he disagrees with the bill and doesn\u2019t think it should become law because it limits faculty\u2019s control over teaching and isn\u2019t specific enough about valid requests or alternative assignments. Still, he believes it raises some valid concerns. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it infringes on academic freedom, but I think it\u2019s a reaction,\u201d Russo said. \u201cMore often than not, it would be the liberal perspective trying to get a kid who disagrees to write these kind of assignments, and I would like to get some ideological balance in there. I think educators have to be sensitive to the beliefs of their students\u00a0\u2026 Respect needs to go both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d prefer state lawmakers stay out of it and stressed that, especially in law school, assignments that force students to engage with multiple sides of an issue are important. But he hopes that colleges and universities have internal conversations about how to accommodate students\u2019 conscientious objections to coursework.<\/p>\n
\u201cMandating that a student write a paper that\u2019s antithetical to one\u2019s deeply held religious beliefs, I think, can be problematic,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying drop the assignment, but maybe come up with an alternative assignment for people who have such strongly held feelings,\u201d as long as the alternative is \u201cin keeping with the spirit, the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill offers a broad definition of conscience: \u201ca sincerely held belief as to the rightness or wrongness of an action or inaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means the legislation extends beyond religious beliefs\u2014which was intentional, Wilson noted. She believes the law could accommodate a wide range of objections, including political, philosophical and other ideological concerns about coursework. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just allowing everybody\u2014believers, nonbelievers\u00a0\u2026 to all say, \u2018Wait a minute, I have a moral center, and my moral center matters to me,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Russo said, ostensibly, a pacifist could argue they don\u2019t want to do an assignment focused on studying war. He believes that complaint is unlikely to succeed if challenged in court, but it raises questions about how the bill could be applied. <\/p>\n
Despite its broad nature, Petersen foresees the legislation as having \u201cvery little impact\u201d on the state\u2019s universities, because they can weed out unreasonable requests; in any case, only a \u201chandful\u201d of professors are likely to run into these issues with their students, he said. <\/p>\n
But Benitez believes the bill could have more serious ripple effects.<\/p>\n
She acknowledged there are ways to implement the bill that \u201cwouldn\u2019t be catastrophic\u201d; for example, a law professor could ask a student to write an opposing argument on a less personal or sensitive topic if they conscientiously object to the original assignment. But in a heated political climate where higher ed leaders already feel pressure to \u201covercomply\u201d with policymakers\u2019 laws and guidance, she fears the consequences of the bill \u201cwill go further than what the bill text actually says.\u201d And while the law could protect all kinds of objections in theory, she believes in practice it \u201cwill be used to target specific viewpoints,\u201d like content related to LGBTQ+ issues, which \u201cwe ultimately see as censorship.\u201d <\/p>\n
She noted that while students opting out of coursework is a new concept for higher ed, it\u2019s been a contentious issue in K\u201312 schools. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court last year sided with religious families seeking to opt their children out of readings with LGBTQ+ themes in Mahmoud et al. v. Taylor. <\/p>\n
She worries that Utah\u2019s bill, which she expects the governor to sign, could become a model for other states, following the way such conflicts have spread in the K\u201312 sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time we are seeing this particular kind of measure, but we have seen with every kind of censorship that we have tracked since 2021 that it might start in one state, but it will absolutely be copy-pasted in another state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Utah representative Mike Petersen was inspired to introduce new legislation after receiving a call from his daughter, a master\u2019s student in social work in Louisiana. She was disturbed that a professor had asked the class to write to a local lawmaker in favor of LGBTQ rights. \u201cShe\u00a0\u2026 said, \u2018Dad, I just got told I needed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[822,2609,3229,23836,12572],"class_list":{"0":"post-46881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-assignments","9":"tag-class","10":"tag-conscientious","11":"tag-objection","12":"tag-utah"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}