I wasn't sure where to put this, so I figure this is better than any other forums^_^

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Student gets F grade
for mentioning God
'He told me you might as well
write about the Easter Bunny'

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Posted: June 30, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

A college in southern California is now investigating the case of a student who says she was given an F for mentioning "God" against the expressed wishes of her atheist instructor.

Bethany Hauf, a freshman at Victor Valley Community College near San Bernadino, wrote the G-word 41 times in a paper titled "In God We Trust," examining the role of religion in government.


She included "God" despite being told not to by adjunct English instructor Michael Shefchik.

"He said it would offend others in class," Hauf, 34, told the Daily Press. "I didn't realize God was taboo."

The mother of four from Apple Valley, Calif., is now demanding an apology from the school, as well as a regrading of her 10-page report.

"I don't lose my First Amendment rights when I walk into that college," she said.

"We are very serious about this situation," VVC spokesman Bill Greulich told WorldNetDaily. "You have two rights in conflict – the right to believe in what you believe in, and academic freedom. We're going to take steps that are appropriate. We don't have all the facts yet."

Greulich says Hauf began the process to challenge her grade by meeting with the department chair, but did not continue up the chain of command in her recourse. He says she could still do that, appealing to the vice president, superintendent and president of the school.

Meanwhile, Hauf has contacted the American Center for Law & Justice, which sent a letter to Patricia Spencer, president of VVC.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ recounted in the letter what Shefchik wrote to Bethany when she was getting approval for her subject matter:

"I have one limiting factor – no mention of big 'G' gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation," Shefchik stated.

"He told me you might as well write about the Easter Bunny," Hauf told the Daily Press. "He wanted to censor the word God."


Shefchik has not been reached for comment, but Judy Solis, chair of the English department, says Hauf was given three options: submit the report with God included, make revisions and edit out the G-word, or rewrite the entire report.

"She continued to write her paper," Solis told the Press. "She knew what the consequences were."

Sekulow says Hauf should have had no ban on her freedom of speech or religious views in the assignment.

"Bethany's paper discusses some of the evidences supporting a hypothesis that, while the Constitution prohibits an established church, religion was essential to the founding of the Nation and to its governance thereafter," he writes.

"Her paper was not one written 'about God' per se. Nor was her paper inherently and necessarily religious. And, in keeping with the requirements of the assignment, it was assiduously supported with citations to authority and written objectively. Consequently, even if, in a country in which academic and constitutional freedoms are so highly prized, it could be constitutional to impose a topical ban on papers about big 'G' gods, it was sophomoric error to read Mrs. Hauf's research paper as falling within the prohibited zone."

Despite the failing mark on the paper, Hauf passed the spring-semester course with a final grade of C.

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I have mixed feelings about this story. Although she does have her rights, and she followed the rest of the guidelines, what the teachers says, goes. But the teacher shouldn't have been so strict about nobody using the word God in a paper, after all, I don't believe many people get offended by the word.

I would have given the teacher the "F" finger.

and yet.. if he had given someone an F for a student using the Goddess word...

meh *shrugs* need I remind you that a christian student can sue an athiest teacher if they teach something that conflicts with said christain student's dogma...

This is beginning to get really rediculous. You can't censor a person's beliefs and the teacher is breaking the law by taking away a 5th Ammendent right. It really doesn't matter what religion is being targeted, it's still wrong.

Quite frankly, it sounds like her paper was a load of garbage anyway

Quite frankly, I'm afraid that anyone who's been to university should have realised by now that a lecturer can often be very picky about what they mark. If your lecturer is a Fruedian, and spends the entire semester teaching you Fruedian veiws, and your final paper contains a lot of dribble that he considers to be incorrect, then your grade might well suffer for it.

Let's be honest here...religion isn't essential for the running of a nation. Unless of course you're the Romans, who realised that Christianity was a great slave religion, and adopted it (with a few minor tweaks) in order to pacify their population. In order to draw any such conclusion, this girl's paper must have had a great deal more wrong with it than just mentioning god.

Exactly.

The same thing goes for a teacher who is biased by being a christian grading a student who writes a paper on how there is no god.

SC - I think you have a persecution complex. This is applying to any religious views, not just Christianity. The outrage would be the same if it involved the word Goddess.



Has this happened? Need I remind you that a Christian teacher can get fired for giving their own opinions in religious matters. My year 11 history teacher was talking about evolution and the different theories regarding it. When asked of her own opinion, she said she was not allowed to give it for fear of rretribution in the education heirarchy (I suspect her to be Catholic, though I cannot know for certain - I didn't really care much about religion or God when i was 17).

Sera - I understand what you are trying to say, but isn't the idea of university to think for yourself? I often have submitted reports which contradict the lecturer's own views and opinions. As long as I build my case with supporting arguments and citations (which from reading this article seems to be the case), then the lecturer should accept it as a valid argument whatever his personal opinions.

All the best,

Why in the world did she intentionally go against her professors specified request? If the prof had told her not to write about Emperor penguins and she wrote about Emperor penguins, she probably would have failed, too.

I think there was a little more to it than that. I think it was more of a "I (the professor) am right for being atheist and you are wrong for believing in God". Did you not see what he said?

I dont care if a professor doesnt like whatever I believe in but that doesnt mean he has the right to give me an F for my views.

How can you say this while in turn not having read one word of her paper? All you know is that it mentioned "God". Does this make it a load of garbage?

You got that right Amalgamut, some people, if that was my child there would be war at that school, this teacher needs to be removed!

I agree, that teacher has no write to do that. Further more, if you are going to disagree with someones views you do it in a civilized manor. You don't insult the person by comparing what they believe in to the easter bunny,, especially if your a college professor.....you should be more mature than that.

Actually there was several laws that are base of religion in many nation. Also i think religion is a major part of a nation, if it is not then we wouldn't have iraqi raging holy wars and Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

the teacher was right
for me there's no god and if you write 41 times the word "god" so you have 41 mistakes
look, the whole thing starts with "In God We Trust" that's utterly wrong how can we trust in something that doesn't exist the teacher was right

I believe the paper was a load of garbage based on it's premise...the belief that religion is vital in running a nation. Religion, in the past and the present, has actually been the greatest source of division among mankind ever divised...any paper based upon this premise is, quite frankly, going to be full of tripe.



Actually, you'll probably find that the laws which you believe are based on religion, are actually simply based on the social norms for any given social mammal...they're not in our code of laws because of religion, but rather our code of laws and religion share them based entirerly on the same source.

Every single society, including those who predate christianity and the ten commandments, have had laws against the like of murder and theft. Religion has nothing to do with it...it simply happens that a working code is in place to allow large groups of any given animal to function. By and large, this code is actually hard coded into our behaviour, which is why the vast majority of people are repulsed by such crimes.

Like your way of thinking Seraphina.

Thank you I...

*looks at Funi's avatar*

.....

.........

.............

.................Thank you, I aim to please.

stop looking at it
someone already stole it

The teacher was dumb. Although I don't think we should involve religion in our schools. I mean if one believes different that is ok. I mean what if he preached about "no God exists" this is wrong also. I mean we don't discuss things that offend others. Church and the home is the prper place. I mean the child was clearly trying to piss the teacher off., Well it worked and she got an F.

1) Church and public schools should be kept seperated.
2) She was correct in saying religion held an imortant role in the founding of our nation.
3) You have no right to take away someone's freedom given to them in the constitution just because you are a teacher.


The teacher told her not to mention her beliefs, but she did anyway. *applause*


Some of you people need to learn some things are more important than others. Example: standing up for what you believe in versus a stupid college paper.

She has the right idea.

Yeah but what if she fails the whole class because she wants to be a rebel. I am sure she could have chosen a different route. even though the history of our country is based on God.

I don't know how the teacher got to be a teacher. It sounds like he/she has the mentality of a 12 year old.

So, if a teacher/professor gives an assignment, with guidelines and parameters, the student should be free to disregard those guidelines and parameters because they disagree?

An example would be, say a discussion on the effects of de-criminalizing marijuana from a medical and legal standpoint, and refraining from personal and or religious opinions. Would a student whose paper basically read "I think that legalizing pot is wrong because my religious leader tells me so", meet those criteria?

Just shows that religions are only good for creating strife, no matter what they pretend to teach.

BTW, do we know what news source this story came from? I seem to have missed the link to it.

I found the original posting it is here at this web address:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45058
Hope that helps....I think the Prof should be hung, I may be anti organized religion, but I am pro religious freedom and freedom of speech!

My thoughts exactly.

By that arguement, do you people harping on about this girl's freedom of speech feel that, had she been a Nazi, and had written a paper about how the Jews are the downfall of society, and that zionist conspiracies must be stamped out, that she should have passed with flying colours, regardless of whether or not anything she said in the paper was true?

It doesn't honestly matter what she chose to write about...she specifically chose to go against the criteria of the paper....that, and the premise for her paper remains a load of rubbish. While it's all very touching that you're leaping to the defence of a fellow christian (or something like that), it doesn't change the fact that she failed with good reason.

The sad truth is that she would have probably gotten a better grade had she chosen to write about this instead of God.

Amalgamut, as amusing as your very black picture is of athiests, I highly doubt that. Her F grade didn't have anything to do with her religious beliefs...it was about deliberately going against what the lecturer had requested for the paper. She decided to be a smart ass, and recieved exactly what she earned.

Sera, normally I would be 100% behind you, but if I don't protect the freedoms of the religious, then those freedoms won't be there to protect me from the religious. Believe it or not, in this country the woman could legally write Nazi propaganda and get away with it - sad but true! Having lived in the UK, I know that it is a little different there, but remember, we got our freedoms from your example! - Mako

Sorry, I didnt mean it like that. I was just saying that I think this teacher has a problem with God.

I don't think it mentioned that it was going against what was requested for this paper. I could be mistaken, but I didn't see anything about what the requirements (or subject) of the paper was.

So, you are telling me that if an atheist student did the same thing (wrote a paper about how there is no God when the instructor specifically told her not to) she deserves the same thing?

If the student wrote an essay talking about how there was no god for the sole purpose of mocking the lecturer, then yes, I feel an F would have been quite appropriate.

Again, I support Seras position.

If the professor asked the class to write about their summer vacation, and the student chose to write about Einsteins Theory of Relativity, she would have gotten an "F" as well.

This is not about freedom of anything, it is about following instructions. A classroom has been compared to a benign dictatorship: the teacher dictates, and the students recite.

If a professor states a guideline for a paper, you follow the guidelines.
If you do not, you fail.

The same have happened if the professor asked the article to be about god, and the student deliberate made the article nothing about god. They would have failed.



That is what school is. Doing the work you're set, and getting graded on it. If we're going to start passing people who can't even follow a simple guideline, why don't we just give everyone diplomas for doing nothing at all, and we'll see where that goes.

"I have one limiting factor – no mention of big 'G' gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation," Shefchik stated.

"He told me you might as well write about the Easter Bunny," Hauf told the Daily Press. "He wanted to censor the word God."

So he said he wanted no "one true god" arguements...and she did it anyway...and failed. Where does the confusion come from?

it could have been a good paper.... The teacher should not have told her not to include F in it.... but she seemed to kinda been prompting him, writing a story about God when she knows he doesn't believe in God. That still gives him no right to say that though...

You know, in my first year of university, I was told to write an essay in the form of a short story, in which a tiny submarine explores the human respiratory system (this is my first essay in uni by the way, that I got an 80 something% on).

I acheived that 80 something % by going home, and writing about a submarine going through the human respiratory system....I would not have recieved an 80 something % had I written about a submarine going through the bloodstream...or the digestive system...or if I'd written about the respiratory system, but done so by writing about a seriel killer hacking someone's out and examining it in great detail.

In fact, for all of the above, I could have expected an F (and, in the case of the last one, a visit to a psychologist ).

This girl did the same thing...she ignored instructions. In fact, she didn't just ignore them, she seems to have deliberately gone against them with the purpose of ticking off her lecturer. She does deserve that F, like it or not.

Just for perspective, these are some of the other news articles from the same site:

'Hillary inside the Pearly Gates!' By Craige McMillan
Click for these scintillating columns, others

Report: IRS probes evangelist Benny Hinn

Planet now shifting to Christianity
Slashed price on book that makes case for fastest growing faith on Earth

New blast for 'Bible Code Bombshell'!
Mathematics expert, ex-skeptic helps prove God's authorship

Christian campus warrior tells how to survive college
Book shows entering students how to combat hostile worldviews

Group tireless in supporting persecuted church
Founder of Voice of the Martyrs jailed, tortured by Communists for years

China arrests bishop
Detained for 6th time in 18 months after 20 years in prison

Pastor on trial for storing Christian lit
Leader of house churches faces years in jail

Meet Planned Parenthood's No. 1 enemy
Author's handbook provides succinct responses to 90 abortion arguments

Abortion clinic blaze called 'terrorism'
Police investigating but pro-lifers immediately suspected

The ex-gay gene?
Nicholas Jackson reveals what students subjected to in public classrooms
--WorldView Weekend

How the homosexual agenda affects your family
'The Gay Agenda' lays out implications of same-sex marriage movement

A little food for thought: Think they may have some sort of bias?????

Just could be

Of course they have bias. everyone has bias. that takes nothing away from the merits of the case.....

No offense Sera, but that's just your opinion there. A case can be made for the role that God has played in the shaping of the nation - as long as she argued that case on its merits, she should not have been given an F. I mean, you all moan that all the American Presidents have been Christian (or at least claimed such). Furthermore, after any tragedy, the President is seen on national television praying for the nation. People swear on the Bible when giving testimony in court. In God we trust is an integral mantra of the American nation (at least as far as I am aware). God plays a part, whether you believe it should or not is another matter. This person was quite within her right to argue such.

As far as I am aware, the lecturer would have allowed the paper if the student had changed the terminology to the small "g" god (which is generic and non-conforming to any specific belief structure). So you can mention god, but not God, if you know what i mean.

All the best,

I went back and checked it out and have to agree with you....mea culpa, I should have checked closer so that I could point that out. I do agree with BFG, everything written is biased to a extent, but a good author tries to keep his/her bias to a minimum.

The problem I have with this article, is that it reminds on the one about the 4 christians who were supposedly arrested for praying.

Then it turned out that they had shown up at a gay pride event, and were determined to disrupt the event and tried to charge the stage.

They were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest IIRC. I will find a link.

When I said that the 'news site' had a bias, I meant that they were selective in what details to push.

I agree Burnside.

I found the story of the 4 Christians. It was on Snopes.com

Philidelphia four

Read it.....typical skewing of the information that is perpetrated by the extreme right wing Christians. I do feel sorry for them, having to sit through hours of atheistic TV broadcasts on Sunday mornings, having Atheists try to force Atheistic prayers into the public schools, making students read the "Atheist Manifesto", having to suffer through Atheist putting Atheistic Commandments in Court Houses and other public buildings! It's so sad what Christians have to put up with, so sad that Atheists have all the political power in America!