Counseling student refuses gay clients, gets expelled, sues

[Metatwaddle]

Hammer, please read the fucking decision. She is trying to be a high school guidance counselor; she was already a high school teacher.

After teaching English and radio and television broadcasting at Southfield High School in suburban Detroit for ten years, Julea Ward decided to become a school counselor. Ward enrolled at Eastern Michigan University in May 2006 and began taking classes towards a master’s degree in counseling, all while continuing to teach full-time.

Can we drop this stupid fucking tangent now? Honestly, this is the most boring thread about an interesting subject I've ever seen.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Ah yes more assumptions about this woman's thoughts and feelings that already permeate this thread. If you'd read the op you would have noted that it wasn't that she didn't want to "work with gays", rather she didn't want to affirm certain sexual behavior, including gay, adulterous, or promiscuous lifestyles. So it would seem she's pretty conservative in her views on sex. Nothing wrong with that, she's free to hold her own views so long as she doesn't force them on others.

Adultery pretty much eliminates most fields of counseling right off the bad. To say nothing about everything else.

Also: It is not an assumption. Empirical Fact. What, you think fundies who use that term are thinking about nice happy "married" couples? No.

She didn't "refuse to deal with" gay clients, rather she dealt with them in the manner that would get best results for the client - referring them to someone who could help them properly in a way she knew that she couldn't. It would have been unethical to take on those clients knowing she would only be able to half-ass counsel them because of her personal beliefs.

And she will NEVER be in a counseling context where that attitude is good. Never. I have already spelled out how doing that to an established patient in any counseling context--and there is no counseling context where homosexuality is absent or less likely, we are randomly distributed among around about 6% of the population-- is harmful to the patient. Please, actually read the posts you respond to before opening your trap.

However, she could choose a field where the likliehood of encountering gay clients is lower than others, and as long as she has a plan for referral for rare cases where she has a conflict of interest be it with gays, adulterers etc then there is no reason why she wouldn't have an effective career.

I dont give a shit about her career. I give a shit about her professional ethics and what she does to patients. Yes, dealing with the conflict of interest in a productive way is better than not. However, it also HURTS HER PATIENTS TO BE REFERRED TO SOMEONE ELSE AFTER THE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, AND HOMOSEXUALITY COMES UP LATER. Do I have to use smaller words? I can do that.

In much the same manner that if a heterosexual man's wife were no longer attractive to him (for whatever reason), yet other women were. Does he HAVE to get divorced then? Or can they realize that the relationship is built on more than where he wants to stick his penis and thus try to make it work anyway.

The relationship might be worth saving, sure. They could end up like a gay guy and his 50 year old live in fag hag. That is fine. That is also something that would get these people referred to another counselor because she views adultery as wrong. Celibacy is likely to cause psychological harm to patients as well.

She literally has ZERO options that are both ethical professionally and palatable to her bigotry/retrogradeness in such a case.

If they came to the conclusion, after many sessions, that the man simply would never be able to accept his marriage to a woman then she would refer them to someone better suited to dealing with situations like this with the very reasonable excuse that her speciality is in counseling couples who wish to stay together.

And if this is something that could happen before the counselor-patient relationship was formed, that would be OK (like end of life counseling. People go in for that specific purpose, it does not come out later that someone has terminal cancer, generally, and if it does, joint sessions might be appropriate). But it is not. Referring someone to a knew counselor after that has happened is unethical, unless there is an emergency of some kind, or a serious problem with the patient such as Transference (when a patient becomes obsessed with their counselor when working through parental or romantic relationship issues).

That is your opinion, one to which I disagree. No doubt she's limited her own career options, but that is her choice. That doesn't mean that she couldn't be a wonderful counselor in a specific field.

Not just mine, but the opinion of the ACA, the professional organization for people in her profession. If there is a field of counseling that will not be an ethical quagmire, fucking name it. So far, you have failed miserably. As a result, your opinion is worthless. People are entitled to their opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts, or to the delusion that all opinions are equal.

[TheHammer]

Please, by all means, name this field where she won't ever have to work with gay clients. Keep in mind, you filed "gay" right up there with "adultery." This means she doesn't just not want to work with gay clients, she actively feels that a gay person is immoral by their very existence.

That's a distortion of the situation. She didn't refuse to work with "gay clients" simply because they were gay, rather she didn't want to be put in a position where she would have to affirm their sexual activity as part of the treatment. A person's view of sexual behavior and the morality of those acts is very much a personal thing. She didn't try to impose her views on anyone, rather she simply did not want to be put in that position to begin with.

Hammer, please read the fucking decision. She is trying to be a high school guidance counselor; she was already a high school teacher.

After teaching English and radio and television broadcasting at Southfield High School in suburban Detroit for ten years, Julea Ward decided to become a school counselor. Ward enrolled at Eastern Michigan University in May 2006 and began taking classes towards a master’s degree in counseling, all while continuing to teach full-time.

Can we drop this stupid fucking tangent now? Honestly, this is the most boring thread about an interesting subject I've ever seen.

The question I asked was whether or not that was her only option for the courses she was taking. Just because someone goes to school with the original intent of having one profession does not mean that after having spent some time studying and working that they don't choose to do something else. I'd say that in this case she'd likely realise she wasn't cut out to be a high school counselor.

Ah yes more assumptions about this woman's thoughts and feelings that already permeate this thread. If you'd read the op you would have noted that it wasn't that she didn't want to "work with gays", rather she didn't want to affirm certain sexual behavior, including gay, adulterous, or promiscuous lifestyles. So it would seem she's pretty conservative in her views on sex. Nothing wrong with that, she's free to hold her own views so long as she doesn't force them on others.

Adultery pretty much eliminates most fields of counseling right off the bad. To say nothing about everything else.

She didn't refuse to work with adulterers, rather she would not affirm adulterous behavior. The point being, she did not feel she could ethically provide counseling to a person if the expection was that she affirm a behavior she did not agree with.

Also: It is not an assumption. Empirical Fact. What, you think fundies who use that term are thinking about nice happy "married" couples? No.

No, its an assumption. I used the term with the meaning that I gave, but I'm not anywhere close to a "fundie" in any sense of the word.

She didn't "refuse to deal with" gay clients, rather she dealt with them in the manner that would get best results for the client - referring them to someone who could help them properly in a way she knew that she couldn't. It would have been unethical to take on those clients knowing she would only be able to half-ass counsel them because of her personal beliefs.

And she will NEVER be in a counseling context where that attitude is good. Never. I have already spelled out how doing that to an established patient in any counseling context--and there is no counseling context where homosexuality is absent or less likely, we are randomly distributed among around about 6% of the population-- is harmful to the patient. Please, actually read the posts you respond to before opening your trap.

Would you argue that the percentage of gay men amongst married man/woman couples seeking marriage counseling is the same percentage as the general population? I'd have to see some stats on that.

However, she could choose a field where the likliehood of encountering gay clients is lower than others, and as long as she has a plan for referral for rare cases where she has a conflict of interest be it with gays, adulterers etc then there is no reason why she wouldn't have an effective career.

I dont give a shit about her career. I give a shit about her professional ethics and what she does to patients. Yes, dealing with the conflict of interest in a productive way is better than not. However, it also HURTS HER PATIENTS TO BE REFERRED TO SOMEONE ELSE AFTER THE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, AND HOMOSEXUALITY COMES UP LATER. Do I have to use smaller words? I can do that.

IF SHE MAKES IT KNOWN THAT SHE IS A SPECIALIST IN A PARTICULAR FIELD THEN ANYONE WHOSE ISSUES FALL OUTSIDE THAT PARTICULAR FIELD SHOULD EXPECT TO BE REFERRED.

TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS FUN

In much the same manner that if a heterosexual man's wife were no longer attractive to him (for whatever reason), yet other women were. Does he HAVE to get divorced then? Or can they realize that the relationship is built on more than where he wants to stick his penis and thus try to make it work anyway.

The relationship might be worth saving, sure. They could end up like a gay guy and his 50 year old live in fag hag. That is fine. That is also something that would get these people referred to another counselor because she views adultery as wrong. Celibacy is likely to cause psychological harm to patients as well.

She literally has ZERO options that are both ethical professionally and palatable to her bigotry/retrogradeness in such a case.

IF SHE MAKES IT PLAINLY CLEAR THAT HER SPECIALITY IS HELPING HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES STAY TOGETHER, THEN THE PATIENT SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE CHOSEN A DIFFERENT COUNSELOR FROM THE OUTSET.

If they came to the conclusion, after many sessions, that the man simply would never be able to accept his marriage to a woman then she would refer them to someone better suited to dealing with situations like this with the very reasonable excuse that her speciality is in counseling couples who wish to stay together.

And if this is something that could happen before the counselor-patient relationship was formed, that would be OK (like end of life counseling. People go in for that specific purpose, it does not come out later that someone has terminal cancer, generally, and if it does, joint sessions might be appropriate). But it is not. Referring someone to a knew counselor after that has happened is unethical, unless there is an emergency of some kind, or a serious problem with the patient such as Transference (when a patient becomes obsessed with their counselor when working through parental or romantic relationship issues).

So every counselor who ever takes a patient is stuck with them regardless of what comes out in the sessions. Is that your contention? So, even if a counselor had no experience with a particular type of situation, and knew a perfectly good counselor who did and who would do a much better job they couldn't make a referral?

That is your opinion, one to which I disagree. No doubt she's limited her own career options, but that is her choice. That doesn't mean that she couldn't be a wonderful counselor in a specific field.

Not just mine, but the opinion of the ACA, the professional organization for people in her profession. If there is a field of counseling that will not be an ethical quagmire, fucking name it. So far, you have failed miserably. As a result, your opinion is worthless. People are entitled to their opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts, or to the delusion that all opinions are equal.

First of all the, ACA is not the fucking be all end all of counseling. It is a trade organization whose membership is voluntary of which there are many. I don't know what choices she would make moving forward, my contention is that there are career options out there for her in the counseling field that would not require her to compromise her religous beliefs, nor violate professional ethics.

In her hypothetical role as a marriage counselor, If she makes it clear ahead of time to all patients seeking her help that she specializes in helping heterosexual couples reconcile troubled marriages then anyone seeking her services could hardly be surprised if they bring up some other issue and are referred elsewhere. If a heterosexual couple decided to split up after seeking her services, then they likewise should expect to seek additional help elsewhere because that's NOT WHAT SHE DOES. Thus a referral to a general counselor, or another specialist is perfectly ethical.

[Darth Wong]

That's a distortion of the situation. She didn't refuse to work with "gay clients" simply because they were gay, rather she didn't want to be put in a position where she would have to affirm their sexual activity as part of the treatment. A person's view of sexual behavior and the morality of those acts is very much a personal thing. She didn't try to impose her views on anyone, rather she simply did not want to be put in that position to begin with.

And there is only one way to guarantee that a counselor will never be placed in a position where she might be forced to "affirm" (ie- not condemn") the sexuality of a client: expel her from the program. Problem solved.

In her hypothetical role as a marriage counselor, If she makes it clear ahead of time to all patients seeking her help that she specializes in helping heterosexual couples reconcile troubled marriages then anyone seeking her services could hardly be surprised if they bring up some other issue and are referred elsewhere. If a heterosexual couple decided to split up after seeking her services, then they likewise should expect to seek additional help elsewhere because that's NOT WHAT SHE DOES. Thus a referral to a general counselor, or another specialist is perfectly ethical.

If she wants to be a counselor who ignores the ethical codes of the profession, she can join a church. Churches have counselors who lack professional qualifications. Her problem is that she wants to get the qualifications of a secular counselor while employing the ethics code of a religious counselor. Well too fucking bad; she can't have it both ways.

The whole point of a professional degree is that it means something. In this case, it means that you have certain qualifications and you can therefore be expected to conform to the standards of the profession. If you don't like those standards, fine: don't demand the paper that says you do.

[TheHammer]

That's a distortion of the situation. She didn't refuse to work with "gay clients" simply because they were gay, rather she didn't want to be put in a position where she would have to affirm their sexual activity as part of the treatment. A person's view of sexual behavior and the morality of those acts is very much a personal thing. She didn't try to impose her views on anyone, rather she simply did not want to be put in that position to begin with.

And there is only one way to guarantee that a counselor will never be placed in a position where she might be forced to "affirm" (ie- not condemn") the sexuality of a client: expel her from the program. Problem solved.

In her hypothetical role as a marriage counselor, If she makes it clear ahead of time to all patients seeking her help that she specializes in helping heterosexual couples reconcile troubled marriages then anyone seeking her services could hardly be surprised if they bring up some other issue and are referred elsewhere. If a heterosexual couple decided to split up after seeking her services, then they likewise should expect to seek additional help elsewhere because that's NOT WHAT SHE DOES. Thus a referral to a general counselor, or another specialist is perfectly ethical.

If she wants to be a counselor who ignores the ethical codes of the profession, she can join a church. Churches have counselors who lack professional qualifications. Her problem is that she wants to get the qualifications of a secular counselor while employing the ethics code of a religious counselor. Well too fucking bad; she can't have it both ways.

The whole point of a professional degree is that it means something. In this case, it means that you have certain qualifications and you can therefore be expected to conform to the standards of the profession. If you don't like those standards, fine: don't demand the paper that says you do.

Clearly she didn't fit in with this particular program since they incorporated the ACA code of ethics into their curriculum. Clearly she wouldn't be qualified to be a high school guidance counselor as she would not have the luxury of being selective in her clientele. And there is no doubt that her views would make her unfit for a good many positions in the field, however that does not preclude her from being good in a specialized practice. That's all I'm contending here.

[Darth Wong]

As I said, she has the option of becoming a counselor in a religious capacity. She does not have the option of demanding a piece of paper that says she is the same as any other professional counselor, when she is clearly not.

[RedImperator]

Hammer, please read the fucking decision. She is trying to be a high school guidance counselor; she was already a high school teacher.

After teaching English and radio and television broadcasting at Southfield High School in suburban Detroit for ten years, Julea Ward decided to become a school counselor. Ward enrolled at Eastern Michigan University in May 2006 and began taking classes towards a master’s degree in counseling, all while continuing to teach full-time.

Can we drop this stupid fucking tangent now? Honestly, this is the most boring thread about an interesting subject I've ever seen.

The question I asked was whether or not that was her only option for the courses she was taking. Just because someone goes to school with the original intent of having one profession does not mean that after having spent some time studying and working that they don't choose to do something else. I'd say that in this case she'd likely realise she wasn't cut out to be a high school counselor.

The university's website has all the counseling programs listed under the department of education; furthermore, she was almost certainly in the "M.A. in School Counseling" program. So it's unlikely they were prepared to offer any degree other than a MA in School Counseling; they could have, I guess, let her transfer to one of the other counseling programs, but those programs are titled "MA in Community Counseling", "MA in College Counseling", and "Graduate Certificate in Helping Interventions in a Multicultural Society" (which doesn't offer an MA), so it's pretty fucking unlikely she was going to find whatever specific niche you seem to think she's qualified for (PS the other two MA programs have practicum requirements).

Furthermore, while undergraduates are free to change programs and career goals, and for all I know graduate students may be too, once you're in a professional program you either get the degree you signed up for or you get fuck all. Her switching that late in her program would have been like me trying to switch to from Secondary to Elementary Ed in March of my last year of grad school.

So in conclusion, no, she had no other options and she should have dropped the program years ago if she knew she couldn't "affirm" homosexuality. It's not the school's fault she couldn't get over her religious hangups and do the fucking job she was asked to do.

[Baffalo]

From the Washington State Department of Health PDF regarding application for a counselor's profession.



According to this, there are only four degrees she could get with a Masters in this field:
Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate
Licensed Social Work Associate Advanced
Licensed Social Work Associate Independent Clinical

Marriage and Family Associate can be eliminated because of the reasons provided by Alyrium Denryle. Homosexuality will come up, especially in young teens who are nervous regarding sex. Social work of any kind will result in contact with people in abusive situations who might cheat or do drugs or anything of that nature. So that leaves her with the exciting career of Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate. And even then, I have my doubts.

[Civil War Man]

Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate can also be crossed off the list. Because someone might end up having to deal with depression or anxiety problems over abuse they've received for being gay. See the recent thread about teenage suicides in Minnesota.

[Baffalo]

Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate can also be crossed off the list. Because someone might end up having to deal with depression or anxiety problems over abuse they've received for being gay. See the recent thread about teenage suicides in Minnesota.

Good point. We've successfully ruled out EVERY POSSIBLE REASON to get a masters in this program.

[Darth Wong]

You know, even if we leave aside the whole ethics code violation, shouldn't we be concerned that this person apparently ignores all of the accepted conclusions in her field regarding homosexuality?

If you're studying to be a doctor and you reject Pasteur's Germ Theory for religious reasons, you shouldn't be a doctor. This seems similar. It's not just an ethics issue; it is a competence issue.

In fact, let's take this further: what reason would anyone have to believe that she would conduct herself in a manner befitting her chosen profession even when talking to a heterosexual person? Suppose a heterosexual couple reveals to her that they've been having premarital sex. Since she believes that her religion overrides the standards of her profession, how do you know she won't rant at them about Biblical values instead of acting like a normal counselor would in that situation? What if she discovers that a female Christian client is considering marriage to a Hindu man? What if a teenager has just had an abortion, and comes to her seeking counseling because she is depressed? There is absolutely no reason to trust that she would live up to the standards of the profession even if she was nowhere near a gay person. Once someone has decided that she can ignore and reject the conclusions, accepted practices, and ethics codes of her profession, pretty much any bizarre behaviour is possible.

Christians can become counselors, just like Christians can become biologists. But they have to agree to the things they're teaching in those courses. If they don't agree, they should quit.

[Stark]

I've heard stories that are probably explained by this sort of thing; girls I know in counselling getting bible verse instead of therapy, marriage counsellors suggesting the wife be more subservient, early development guys talking about the use of violence etc. Maybe they were all just preaching from their chair instead of providing their service.