Phyrfight Intel

From: American Center for Law and Justice

In her English 101 course, Bethany Hauf, a freshman at a community college in California, was told that she could pick the topic to be discussed in the quarterly term paper. She chose to discuss “Religion and its Place within the Government.” The professor, Michael Shefchik, responded by noting the controversial nature of the topic, calling it one the “two most taboo and subjective topics.” While he approved the paper, he had a specific request that Bethany not mention God in the paper. In fact, in an email, the professor specifically told Bethany “I have one limiting factor—no mention of big “G” gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation.” He went on to say in the same email that the separation of church and state has to be respected, and it would be more appropriate to discuss the topic from a different vantage point. Specifically, the professor stated that “perhaps ‘Religion has no place in government’ would be a more viable and topical subject.”

After presenting a draft of the paper to Shefchik, as required by course requirements, Hauf was told that because she had written off topic about God, at best, 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.

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Three links: Original Story, Update 1 and Update 2.