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Your priorities speak

Well, here's a strange tempest in a teapot. I've already had some lengthy debates about this in the semi-privacy of Facebook, and that has only moved me to blog about it more or less on the side of the student.

Feel free to go and read the story and watch the video. Then you can read Biola's response and any associated links. Here is my take on the story, in no particular order:

--Biola does appear to have lots of things that its faculty does and that the school as an institution does for the pro-life cause. That is undeniable and admirable. At the same time, it seems that Diana (the nursing student) got to her fourth year of a nursing degree at Biola without knowing about the reality of abortion. How did that happen? Also, when she set up her pro-life display, she claims that she encountered hostile students. If we assume (and I'll admit that I do assume) that this means some pro-choice students, how did that happen? Biola should be concerned that it is not succeeding in passing on the pro-life message and the truth about abortion to its students. That should be a priority for the institution, not asserting in heavy-handed fashion its authority to block the display of graphic pro-life signs on campus.

--It has been suggested to me that Diana is lying when she says that she didn't know that she wasn't allowed to display the graphic signs. Let's keep this straight. She admits that she knew she was breaking school rules by displaying the graphic poster sign the second time after having failed to negotiate permission to do so. She says only that the first time, after she got permission to set up a table with information about abortion, she was surprised to be told that she needed separate, special permission to display her signs along with the table. This is entirely plausible. Apparently she went through procedures and was given permission for the table but was then told that this permission didn't cover signs displayed at the table! That is extremely odd and inefficient and is not something Diana would have been likely to understand by the natural light. If the school is going to approve displayed content, why not approve it all at once? Why require separate approval for a table and for a sign and then play "gotcha" with a student who displays a sign at the table without getting that particular sign approved? Of course a student who has jumped through the hoops and gotten permission for a table will assume that signs on the same topic may be displayed at or near the table. If the school officials wanted to see the signs first or know more about them before approving the display, they should have asked. See the next point...

--I have now read the link here to Biola's policy about what it calls "student forums" and also the form students have to fill out. Please note that this is the very section of the handbook to which Biola itself directs attention in its response to the incident. So we might expect to find something here about having to get each and every sign you want to display approved, separately from getting approval for a table, since this was allegedly what Diana had to do. Nope. Not a word. In fact, neither link has any clear discussion of content approval, though the form has two lines for "type of event/event details." While I understand that Biola is a private organization and therefore is within its rights to exercise "prior restraint" on speech, and while I understand that it does in fact exercise this prior restraint by engaging in content pre-approval, it looks like the claim that Diana needed separate permission for a table and for a sign with the table is not supported by the school's own documentation. In other words, it looks suspiciously like such a "rule" was made up ex post facto after the administrators got complaints about her graphic anti-abortion signs and were looking for an excuse to rescind the permission which they regretted having granted for her table! If we're to talk about whose honesty is called into question by this aspect of the incident, it isn't Diana's.

--The school cannot succeed in insisting that this is not about abortion, since it was the school's resolute refusal to grant permission for pro-life content that triggered the whole thing. Outsiders such as myself are going to be understandably put off by any attempt to say that the abortion angle must be ignored and that this is "all about obeying due authority." We're going to want to know if the authority was rightly and wisely exercised by a pro-life school.

--When it comes to that question, it is extremely unsettling to consider that this otherwise pro-life school is so dead-set against letting an enthusiastic student hold even a graphic anti-abortion sign in public on campus for one hour (which is what she says she requested in negotiations) that it would send campus security to force her to stop and to threaten her with expulsion, arrest, and with not being allowed to march in graduation. (Not to mention Dr. Elliott's alleged punishment, which is so insane, so far beyond the pale, that I'm saving a discussion of it for the end.)

Pro-life people can disagree about the appropriateness and effectiveness of using graphic pictures of aborted unborn children, but it isn't a hill to die on, and the school makes itself look very bad by being so stubborn on the matter. Did Diana also make it a hill to die on? Sure. And I can acknowledge that this was somewhat over-the-top and perhaps somewhat unwise on her part. Diana made this a hill to die on because she is somewhat young and immature. The administrators also made it a hill to die on. What's their excuse?

--Related to the previous point: The video of safety officer John Ojeisekhoba threatening Diana with arrest and grabbing her sign interspersed with President Barry Corey's sermon about speaking truth and being taken out of your comfort zone is highly effective. The idea that their college students are going to get the vapors because they happen to walk by pictures of aborted unborn children is ridiculous, and it is all the more ridiculous at a college that is challenging its students to be taken out of their comfort zone, to speak truth no matter what the consequences, and to be radical servants of Jesus Christ. The contrast between such inspiring speeches and the cold, dead, repetitious, threatening mutters of Mr. Ojeisekhoba, "We told you not to show those signs here. You can't show those signs..." etc., is entirely creepy.

--Civil disobedience is a vexed issue. It is not going to settle this matter to quote Bible verses about obeying authority. Whether Diana was right or wrong to engage in civil disobedience when she displayed her sign the second time, it is simply pompous to get up on one's high horse and tell us that she has to obey authority because that's what God says or that she is a disgrace to the pro-life movement because she, gasp, disobeyed the school authorities. By that standard, every peaceful pro-life demonstrator who has ever been arrested within the bubble zone outside a clinic or praying in the driveway at Planned Parenthood is a disgrace to the pro-life movement. Not to mention MLK, Jr., whom a lot of pro-lifers admire. Whether to engage in a peaceful action that breaks a rule in order to bring truth to the public square is not a cut-and-dried question and cannot be settled by proof-texts.

--The school appears to be within its legal rights to block these signs from being displayed on its campus even for a short time. I'm actually quite pleased that a Christian school has the legal right to block content on signs being displayed on its campus. One can only imagine what would be displayed if matters were otherwise. However, the way in which the school chooses to exercise this right is something that other people have a right to criticize. Suppose we grant that everything Biola has done here is legal (though I hae me doots about Dr. Elliott's outrageous actions). If Biola decides to exercise its legal rights by bringing down draconian punishment upon a pro-life student who displays a picture of an aborted child on its campus, that is likely to result in bad press. It is unlikely to go over very well with Biola's pro-life constituency. If we're to talk about "expected consequences," those are consequences. Deal with it, chaps.

--Yes, Diana's voice sounds rather whiny in the video. Yes, Diana seems not to understand that her free speech rights aren't the same on a private college campus as they would be in some other public forum. Yes, the tone of the LIfesite News article is somewhat high-falutin' against Biola and seems not to recognize that Biola has a strong independent claim to being a pro-life school. But none of this is sufficient to make us think that the incident is made up or misrepresented. In fact, the school's own account, though it simply doesn't go into the "first round" concerning the table and doesn't mention Dr. Elliott, is, as far as it goes, in agreement with Diana's. If someone has specific, clear information that the facts are otherwise and can back this up, feel free to share it. "I don't trust Lifesite News on this story" does not count.

--Okay, on to Dr. Susan Elliott. Deep breath. What?????!!!! According to Diana's report, which is thus far not contradicted by any statement from anyone, the head of the school of nursing, Dr. Susan Elliott, went out and made up, all on her own, a penalty for Diana: She wrote to the nursing faculty and ordered them not to write Diana any letters of reference for employment. The outrageousness of this is indescribable. Speaking from an academic perspective, I must be emphatic here: Decisions about letters of reference lie between the student and the professor providing the reference, period. No chairman or administrator ought ever to have authority to forbid a professor to write a student a letter of reference, any more than an administrator has authority to require a professor to write such a letter. Letters of reference are some of the last vestiges of the old, personal, mentoring model of education. The professor agrees or does not agree to give the student his personal recommendation and to state honestly to another school or to a prospective employer what he thinks of the student as a candidate for the job or graduate school.

From the perspective of Diana's own prospects, this dreamt-up punishment is draconian to the nth degree. If Diana did wrong in displaying the signs against orders to the contrary, Elliott's action is similar to catching your child taking a cookie and breaking both his arms. It is utterly, unbelievably out of proportion to the "crime" to attempt to ruin the student's entire career. Whatever we might say about other administrators, such an insane and control-freakish act by Dr. Elliott must call her own pro-life credentials into question. Why in the world would any pro-lifer even attempt to carry out such an extreme punishment?

As regards the professors, such an attempt to control their letter writing is completely out of bounds and is an infringement of their prerogative to make their own decisions about personal reference writing. If a school doesn't trust a teacher to make "the right" decision about what students to write letters for, the school shouldn't hire the teacher. And please, readers who wish to defend Biola, don't give me, "Well, nobody should want to write a letter for her anyway." First, I don't agree. For all we know she might be an excellent nursing student, and a little over-enthusiasm and heel-kicking-up for the pro-life cause, even if it (gasp) broke a rule would not override that. But second, that's up to the professors to decide. If the unworthiness of Diana to have a nursing career is so blindingly evident from this one incident, why can't Dr. Elliott trust her esteemed colleagues to see that? This is insanity.

Now, I admit that it is possible that Elliott wrote a letter (I'm making this up) suggesting rather than ordering that professors not write letters of reference. Even if that were the case (and that isn't what Diana says), that would be an unwarranted interference between teacher and student and would be functionally coercive for any profs. who are untenured or over whom Elliott has other powers.

This is an abuse of Dr. Elliott's institutional power. It is beyond the pale. Whether it is legal or not I don't know. I would encourage any professors who were planning to write letters for Diana to stand up to it and defy it, to avoid endorsing such a crazy precedent of infringing their decision-making about letters of reference if for no other reason.

Moreover, I challenge anyone to go through the history of Biola and find any precedent for this, any other case in which an administrator has given a sweeping order to an entire department not to write letters of reference for a graduating student. I would be rather surprised if such a...creatively extreme punishment has ever been exacted before.

Those at a higher level from Dr. Elliott in the Biola administration should decisively slap down this high-handed maneuver. Yesterday. They should call in Dr. Elliott and tell her that she has exceeded her authority. They should send out a counter-memo affirming that professors may write letters of reference for Diana if they so choose and assuring them that they will be protected from retaliation from the head of nursing, Dr. Elliott, if they do so.

Priorities speak. Reading this story, I have to wonder why the Biola administration has not handled this as, one is tempted to think, they would handle a similar case if the issue were race or "social justice" of some other kind. Let's not forget that this is the school that spent a year or so beating its collective administrative, professorial, and student breast over the worry that the school's large mural depicting Jesus Christ was "too white." (Yes, this is really true. You can google it.) In my opinion, the response to Diana's enthusiasm should have been to channel it for good. For goodness' sake, let her hold her graphic sign for one hour. I think nobody is actually going to faint. But beyond that, call her in and ask her how in the world it happened that she got to her fourth year as a nursing student without understanding the reality of abortion. Ask her what can be done to fix this and to avoid this in the future. Don't misunderstand. The school does have a list of good things it does in the service of the pro-life cause, and there is nothing wrong with the school's bragging about that. (These include, ironically, a conference featuring Scott Klusendorf of Life Training Institute, who is an advocate of the use of graphic imagery in the pro-life cause.) But the message isn't completely getting across, and it's always possible to do more. Diana could be tapped as one source among others for ideas about what that "more" could be. I didn't notice screenings of The Silent Scream and Eclipse of Reason in the list, though perhaps some professors do it in class. So there's one idea.

Normally one would expect a school confronted with a student who advocates one of its own causes but does so with perhaps somewhat of an excess of youthful enthusiasm to be thankful for the student's passion and to try to make use of that passion for a good end. Biola seems to have been more concerned to insist, with a kind of absolute authoritarianism bordering on obsession, that no "visceral imagery" of unborn aborted children be shown even for a short period of time in public on their campus. That was their matter of principle. But that is a strange priority. Priorities speak. Biola needs to go back, get out of its "we're in charge here" trap, and question its decisions in this case.

Comments (22)

We've all seen this kind of thing before: person X does something a bit foolish, and authority Y takes it as direct defiance of their very existence whole and entire, something that they must respond to with the utmost of their effort. But of course it isn't, and they are caught in a mutual destruction loop of their own making.

This is the sort of mistake you expect to see (once) from a newly minted first line manager, not upper management and/or executives. Supposedly mature, responsible people like university presidents and deans are supposed to have the common sense, and the experience, to recognize this sort of thing right off for the tea-pot silliness that it is, and put an immediate stop to its escalation. Biola has been ill-served by its leadership to let this go on, not least for the simple reason that Biola now will be known far and wide for not standing up for the free speech of pro-life activists (regardless of Biola's right to limit such speech. It is irrelevant that Biola is absolutely correct in their right to limit such speech.)

"Escalation" is a good word, Tony. I think the parent-child analogy is weak for this case, but even considering it on that level, if I as a parent find myself meting out a punishment that is wildly disproportionate to the offense, I shd. recognize that's the time to take a deep breath and do a system reboot. The university is not doing that.

Thank you for posting this. It motivated me to send the following e-mail to the administration at Biola:

To the leadership of Biola University,

My name is Joshua [Redacted], and I am a graduate student in the philosophy program at Texas A&M University. I wanted to contact you to express my reaction to your university's treatment of nursing student Diana Jimenez.

My understanding is that on some occasions, Miss Jimenez displayed (on campus) a poster showing the gruesome result of abortion without proper approval. In response, your university's officials have threatened not to allow her to graduate. Furthermore, Dr. Susan Elliott has banned the nursing faculty from writing Miss Jimenez any letters of reference. These punishments are grossly excessive, given both the limited magnitude and well-intentioned character of Miss Jimenez's wrongdoing.

As a Christian university, one of your responsibilities is to cultivate Christian values in your students. This includes inculcating an awareness of the importance of obedience to God-given authorities. As an honorably discharged military officer, I am well aware of the importance of respect for authority. By disobeying your administration, Miss Jimenez has fallen short of her duty to you and to God. You are right to seek to remedy this situation by imposing some kind of discipline on Miss Jimenez.

Nevertheless, you have displayed a stunningly excessive zeal for punishing this young woman beyond all reasonable Christian judgment. While I'm aware that Biola is involved in a great deal of work in the pro-life community, that does not excuse your treatment of Miss Jimenez. While she was wrong to disobey, her intention was obviously good. Far too many Christians express a fleeting sadness at the reality of abortion in America and then spend little time or effort doing anything to help put a stop to it. Many such Christians graduate from your university. For two thousand years Christianity has taught that abortion is homicide. Miss Jimenez is clearly emotionally distraught over the current state of affairs in the U.S. and decided that spreading awareness of the magnitude of this crime was more important that obeying the rules that limited her ability to do so in the bold fashion that she thought appropriate. Your statement to the public indicates that you do not believe that graphic posters of dead babies are an appropriate way of spreading awareness of the horror of abortion. I do not contest your right to enforce standards in accordance with this belief, but I am angered by your apparent unwillingness to take into consideration the importance of her cause. Every year, several hundred thousand unborn babies are murdered in this country. I would argue that anyone who can contemplate the magnitude of such evil without wanting to react in a dramatic manner is not particularly wedded to the Christian worldview.

I would like to quote from a website that includes a thought from Mr. Hooper (from http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2013/may/08/posters-abortion-complaints/):

Posters containing graphic images, even if it is for an important cause, are treated differently than other promotional material, Hooper stated. He gave an example of a young woman healing from a past abortion who might experience emotional distress when encountering the images. The center of campus is meant to be a safe place in which students can feel at home, Hooper said.

I infer from this statement that there are students at Biola who have had abortions and who remain there as students and receive degrees. Apparently, it is your belief that students who are guilty of homicide should be able to move forward with their lives in a safe Christian atmosphere at Biola. You believe that such students may yet go on to live in a way that glorifies God and reflects well on your university. Perhaps you are correct to have such a belief -- some of the greatest heroes of the Bible are murderers who find forgiveness and redemption (e.g., Moses, David, Paul). Accordingly, you may be right that it is important to create a safe atmosphere for such students.

Even so, what about creating a safe atmosphere in which to discover how best to fight against one of the greatest -- and in my opinion, the greatest -- evils of our time? (For that matter, what about a safe place for unborn babies? For all you know, Miss Jimenez's posters might have dissuaded some women from seeking an abortion. Even at the cost of offending twenty -- or even 20,000 -- the payoff seems worth it.) Miss Jimenez's behavior was out of line, but her sin seems to me far closer to good behavior than the behavior of the women who graduate from your university after having one or more abortions. If there is grace for such women as these, what about grace for Miss Jimenez? Perhaps it is important not to offend women who are guilty of seeking abortions, but your actions are sending the message that it is worse to offend such women than it is to have an abortion. You might argue that Miss Jimenez is more deserving of harsh punishment because she disobeyed school policies, but presumably it is a violation of Biola's rules to seek an abortion. In any case, to seek an abortion is to disobey God. Miss Jimenez is guilty of disobedience, but no more so than women who seek abortions.

Miss Jimenez is a young woman who, in her zeal for righteousness, has demonstrated questionable, but nevertheless understandable, judgment. A Christian university is the perfect place for refining a student such as Miss Jimenez. She has a great deal of potential as a future nurse and pro-life leader. If you can look past the crime of abortion and allow those guilty of such a crime a chance to recover and graduate, you should do the same for Miss Jimenez. Furthermore, you should remove Dr. Susan Elliott's absurd ban on letters of reference for Miss Jimenez.

I am ashamed of your treatment of this young woman and I hope you have the conscience to do the right thing by allowing her to graduate with the appropriate letters of reference.

Sincerely,

Joshua [Redacted]

Thanks for posting the letter, Joshua. It looks like the commencement ceremony took place a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to _guess_ that they were bluffing and that they let Diana Jiminez march, but that is just a guess. The letters of reference issue, on the other hand, would be likely to remain an on-going issue.

One thing I have thought of in pondering this: Doesn't Biola have a category of "minor offense" with commensurate punishment? Something like being written a ticket, for example, which would be put on one's student account? (Student accounts often have to be paid before one can get certain services such as official transcripts.) I cannot see how a large institution could possibly operate without such a category. It would be pretty hard to have a university where your only punishment options are nuclear ones! So while I know there have been defenders of the university saying that there must be "consequences" for her displaying the sign against orders, it would seem that there is a lack of creativity when it comes to meting out appropriate consequences for something this relatively minor.

Excellent letter, Joshua!

I suppose, Lydia, that I will be forgiven for assuming the self-confessed serial fornicator shown in the video was never sought out for discipline.

Knowing intellectually what an abortion is and truly comprehending the horror of it are not the same thing. I doubt Miss Jimenez is the first (or the last) student for whom the horror didn't become real until she was confronted with the graphic reality.

If anyone knows of a legal defense fund for her, if she has to pursue Dr. Elliott's actions in court, let me know. I'd like to make a contribution.

As an alumnus, I'm distressed that Biola is being so unfairly attacked. I don't intend to get in an argument about this, but I would like to point out several things which I think are relevant.

(1) Miss Jimenez was, indeed, allowed to graduate.

(2) This debate is not about whether abortion is wrong. All sides agree that it is wrong. It is not about whether Christians should publically advocate against abortion. Biola publically advocates against abortion, as amply documented in Biola's press release. Nor it is about whether Christians should be allowed to use graphic images of abortion in advocating for the pro-life cause. Miss Jimenez was allowed to display the graphic images in an enclosed space. This debate is about whether a student should be allowed to display (very!) large graphic images in public where everyone, young and old, is forced to see them.

Reasonable people may disagree, but I’m on the side of the administration here. Many people (myself included) don’t want such terrible images in their heads. The image of a live baby in the womb is enough motivation for me to cry out against the injustice of abortion. Moreover, there are (most likely) a small number of women among the 6,000 or so students at Biola who have had abortions in the past which they have regretted and from which they have repented. I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about their emotional well-being. Finally, it’s not uncommon for young children to be on Biola’s campus, especially given its support of the local homeschooling community. In fact, there was a group of elementary school kids on campus the day that Miss Jimenez pulled her stunt. If I were a parent, I wouldn’t want *my* six year old to see an image of a murdered baby.

(3) The video in question claims Miss Jimenez was threatened with expulsion. That claim was repeated on this blog. That is untrue. If you listen carefully to the video, she was threatened with being banned from entering campus, which would have the implication that she would be unable to participate in the graduation ceremony. She would still receive her diploma, but she wouldn’t attend the ceremony.(This is probably one of the many reasons, by the way, why the university characterized the incident as being misrepresented.)

(4) The claim that Biola is not adequately educating its students about the reality of abortion is entirely untrue. The fact that one student (out of over 6,000!) was unaware of the reality of abortion is hardly sufficient evidence of that. I graduated in 2012, and I can tell you that it was in one of my classes at Biola that I was immersed in the many cogent philosophical arguments against abortion. Moreover, as a nursing student, Miss Jimenez would have been required to take a class in bioethics which covers abortion from a pro-life perspective. She claims she wasn't told about the reality of abortion. Was she sleeping during those lectures? Finally, Biola frequently devotes entire seminars and chapels to the subject. In fact, it was talked about (twice!) this last semester. See Dr. La Verne Tolbert's blog post below. She was the speaker in those two chapels, and I think her take on the issue is worth reading.

http://drtolbert.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/the-truth-biola-university-is-pro-life/

(As a side note: It's really puzzling that so many people who, presumably, have never set foot on Biola's campus would think they are in a position to judge how well Biola is educating its students on the matter.)

(5) The actions of the chief of Campus Safety were *completely* reasonable. The student was intentionally violating school policy, baiting Campus Safety into a confrontation, and creating a disruption. She was asked to stop and leave, but she refused. He can’t just stand there and watch her. He has to enforce school policy. A perfectly reasonable way to deal with a person who REFUSES TO MOVE is to threaten to call the police to escort her off campus. Once she is off campus, it makes perfect sense to ban her from campus, given that she has repeatedly caused disruptions and shows no intention of stopping. This, by the way, is precisely how some homosexual activists who came on campus were dealt with while I was attending.

Maybe some think his tone was too harsh. But how would *you* react if someone under your authority deliberately disobeyed you and showed up with a video camera strapped to her chest (yes—she strapped the camera to her chest—see her picture on the video) in an effort to catch your reaction and use it against you?

(6) The claim that Biola has its priorities out of line seems unsupported by the evidence. Biola has spent far more time, money, and effort in promoting awareness of the issue of abortion than it has in enforcing school policies about the public display of graphic images. Even in dealing with Miss Jimenez, the school kept the promoting of awareness of abortion as a priority. That’s why they made every effort to allow her to promote her cause in an appropriate manner, including offering her the opportunity to host a panel discussion on the topic. This demonstrates, by the way, that, contrary to what was implied in this blog, the university *did* make an effort to channel her enthusiasm for good. Miss Jimenez simply refused to cooperate.

(7) The only thing that is even remotely questionable is the actions of Dr. Elliott. I share some of the concerns voiced on this blog, but I am unwilling to make a judgment until I have all the facts. I will say this, though. What troubles me is not the harshness of the punishment. I think it's perfectly reasonable for an institution to refuse to help a student who is actively participating in a public smear campaign against it. And there are indications that the punishment was only temporary. From what I've heard, it sounds to me that if she were to refrain for a year from displaying those images on campus, the restriction would be lifted. If that's right, the punishment is hardly career-crippling. It would just stall her career a bit, and plenty of students go on to have successful careers after taking a year off. (I myself just took a year off from school. Hopefully I haven't made a career-crippling decision!)

What makes me uncertain about Dr. Elliott's actions is that I'm a bit uneasy about a higher-level administrator telling faculty which students they can and cannot write letters of recommendation for. I'm sympathetic with criticisms of that aspect of the punishment. But that's only a minor criticism of the punishment, and not one that warrants the media firestorm which has been created.

(8) The priorities which are truly questionable are those of the Center for Bio-ethical Reform, the extremist group which Miss Jimenez collaborated with in publically attacking Biola. Isn't it a far more effective use of time, money, and effort to raise awareness on public university campuses where abortion is widely considered acceptable? Why attack a school where all of the faculty and almost all the students are pro-life? And if you *must* attack a Christian school, why not attack the hundreds of schools which are sitting on the sidelines letting schools like Biola do the dirty work of suing the federal government over the unjust health care mandate?


Ad #1:

Miss Jimenez was, indeed, allowed to graduate.

So how nice, they were bluffing. Vulcans never bluff. The bluff was a form of silly, chest-thumping bullying, and it makes them look bad. As it should. If you think the fact that they dropped this particular thing makes them look significantly better, I disagree.

Ad #2: CBR itself has stated that there would be warnings posted near the graphic signs. So when you see those warnings, take your 6yo by a different route. In any event, the odds of your 6yo walking past there during the _single hour_ she was asking for aren't really all that high. In any event, as I said, reasonable people can disagree about the graphic signs, but Biola chose to get so hyper about it that they went to the mat about it. We're not talking about giving her a small fine but about making a huge stink and trying to mess up her career. That's dumber than a rock, from every possible perspective.

Ad #3: If some commentator said she was threatened with expulsion, the only thing I didn't do was to root out that particular claim and dispute it. I'm not responsible for every word that procedeth out of every commentator's keyboard. That claim was not in my main post, so chill.

Ad #4: Perhaps you would also address the claim that she met hostile students. I think you would be over-bold if you were to claim that there are no pro-choice students on Biola's campus. Biola needs to try to change that. I've already acknowledged the work that Biola does on the issue. I consider I've given them their due. Frankly, comments like yours make me think I've been too nice to the school.


Ad #5: No, they weren't. The school needs to find a category of minor infraction and apply it in this situation. If the chief of campus cops has nothing to use but nuclear options, he's got a problem, and it isn't Diana Jimenez.

Ad #6: It's the school's treatment of Diana that *just is* evidence of a misplaced priority. As Tony pointed out early in this thread, the school administrators are acting like a manager who freaks out at anything that could be perceived as a challenge to his authority. It's now supposed to be all about them, etc. They need to chill. That's where the lack of priorities comes in--that they seem unable to do so. As for trying to channel her energies positively, they clearly didn't try hard enough, given the escalation that has resulted. But, again, it was supposed to be all about them and going to the mat over, God forbid, her showing a graphic photo for one lousy hour. I think the admins need to grow up.

Ad #7: Your statement that this is only for a year is unsupported by any concrete evidence. In other words, it's a rumor. I'd be interested to see some evidence. Even if it is one year, that's still utterly outrageous. I gather she's just supposed to live with kindly friends in the meanwhile? And hope that employers aren't put off by the delay? The arrogance of saying that this student deserves to have her career put on hold is, frankly, distasteful. As is the airy, let-them-eat-cake assumption from an evident position of privilege that just everyone can afford to put their employability on hold for a year.

The withholding of letters is an _extremely_ draconian punishment for the student.

Again, the weakness of your condemnation here shows your failure to understand the nature of a letter of recommendation. Letters of reference come from the professors, not from the school. They are a kind of sui generis entity. You can't compare them to employment letters, and statements that they would constitute an endorsement of her by "the school" is misguided.

What makes me uncertain about Dr. Elliott's actions is that I'm a bit uneasy about a higher-level administrator telling faculty which students they can and cannot write letters of recommendation for. I'm sympathetic with criticisms of that aspect of the punishment. But that's only a minor criticism of the punishment, and not one that warrants the media firestorm which has been created.

Well, I suppose I should be mildly gratified that you have _some_ degree of "uncertainty." What you do not seem to see is that these matters are of a piece. If one could recognize the sheer, breathtaking insanity of Dr. Elliott's attempt to interfere in this way in a matter that is *always* between student and professor, that would have multiple effects on one's understanding. It undermines the claim that what is being blocked is merely an endorsement _by the school_. It shows that Elliott has attempted to find something highly unusual and unprecedented, which argues personal vindictiveness. And it shows that the university is indeed making punishing Diana Jimenez a big priority, which is what my post is about.

As for the "media firestorm," I'm responsible only for my own small contribution to that firestorm, and I have no regrets. The school deserves _enormous_ criticism for its attempt to block Diana's letters. Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with the commentator in the other thread and to hope that CBR makes things extremely uncomfortable for Biola, simply because they are stonewalling on the letters. Had the school let Diana show her picture for one stinking hour, none of this would have happened. Had they given her a far milder punishment, the "firestorm" would have been far less. They have brought it on themselves.

As it is, I fear the whole thing will die down and the school will succeed in sticking it to Diana and derailing her career. So be happy. You may yet get your wish. But that won't be justice.

Oh, yes, I forgot. Do the phrases "baiting campus safety" and "creating a disruption," which you seem to have taken nearly verbatim from the school's talking points, refer to anything *other* than her showing the sign? Or are they just redundant ways of saying what we all know already, which is that she showed the sign? Because if the latter, they are rather misleading, aren't they? They give the impression that she was throwing rocks at the campus cops or screaming at them or something. So far, no one has said anything of the kind. We have merely vague phrases about "creating a disruption" which _appear_ to refer only to showing the sign, which is now being _called_ by all these extreme names to make what she did sound worse than it was. Myself, I don't appreciate that. It bespeaks a bureaucratic attempt to manipulate public sentiment by way of misleading terminology.

Biola Alum,

I take your own post as evidence that the graduates of Biola have misguided priorities. If this Christian school permits a learning environment in which it is not absolutely clear that having an abortion is far worse than potentially offending those who may have had an abortion (or even offending children), then priorities are getting mixed up.

If it's not such a bad punishment to be without letters of reference for a year, then why don't the women who have abortions suffer such punishment? Or do they? (I doubt it.)

Abortion is murder. If you genuinely realize what this means, you will see how your objections to us are trivial and absurd.

Oh goodness…I’ll just respond to a few things.

If some commentator said she was threatened with expulsion, the only thing I didn't do was to root out that particular claim and dispute it. I'm not responsible for every word that procedeth out of every commentator's keyboard. That claim was not in my main post, so chill.

You make that claim here:

When it comes to that question, it is extremely unsettling to consider that this otherwise pro-life school is so dead-set against letting an enthusiastic student hold even a graphic anti-abortion sign in public on campus for one hour (which is what she says she requested in negotiations) that it would send campus security to force her to stop and to threaten her with expulsion, arrest, and with not being allowed to march in graduation.

Is that not in your main post? All I saw was one post—I don’t know which the “main” one is. Regardless, you make the claim and it is inaccurate. I believe you do bear some responsibility to verify claims before you repeat them as fact.

I don’t believe I need to “chill.” I’m quite calm about it. I just pointed out, in a matter of fact manner, that your post contained an inaccuracy.

CBR itself has stated that there would be warnings posted near the graphic signs.

Warning signs aren't going to prevent anyone from seeing large posters of murdered babies. People's eyes are going to be automatically drawn to the gruesome images before they even have a chance to see and read a warning sign. And it's *not* all that unlikely that a child would be walking by during that time. As I said, there were elementary school students on campus the day she displayed the photos, and Biola is a very small campus.

Perhaps you would also address the claim that she met hostile students. I think you would be over-bold if you were to claim that there are no pro-choice students on Biola's campus. Biola needs to try to change that.

Biola *is* trying to change that. What do you think the numerous chapels, seminars, and classes which cover the topic are for?

I know that one of the "hostile" students was pro-life. (I thought one of the lessons to take away from this whole incident is that pro-life people *can* be hostile to the public display of graphic abortion images.) I don't know about the others. As I said in my comment, there probably are students who are pro-choice at Biola. That's sad. But it's highly doubtful that there is anything Biola can do guarantee that *every single one* of its 6,000 students is pro-life. Even if we (falsely) assume all the hostile students were pro-choice, that doesn’t provide good reason for thinking Biola is not doing an adequate job of educating its students on the matter. That would be like saying that because not everyone who listens to a given pro-lifer’s presentation ends up convinced, the speaker must have done a poor job. The existence of a handful of pro-choice students is hardly convincing evidence that Biola isn’t doing a good enough job in pro-life education. And that was the whole point of what I said. I don’t see how anyone could reasonably disagree with that.

With regard to the Campus Safety chief’s actions: it just don’t see how he acted unreasonably. As I mentioned before, this is how a group of homosexual activists were treated when they tried to make a scene on campus. No one considered that to be a “nuclear option” then. Apparently, when you are trying to get someone to stop making a scene, threatening them with banning them from campus and/or calling the police is an effective means of stopping them. Usually, no one actually needs to be banned and the police aren’t needed. That’s what happened in this case.

He could have given her a fine, I suppose. I just don’t think that is the route he *had* to take. And who knows if that would have worked? She had a well-funded organization behind her. They might be willing to pay those fines. And if she refused to comply, was issued more citations, and ended up having to pay a fairly hefty fine, I suspect many people would cry bloody murder over it.

(It’s important to keep the actions of the Campus Safety Chief separate from Dr. Elliott’s. As far as I know, he had absolutely nothing to do with the punishment issued by Dr. Elliot. The chief didn’t punish Miss Jimenez *at all*.)

Do the phrases "baiting campus safety" and "creating a disruption," which you seem to have taken nearly verbatim from the school's talking points, refer to anything *other* than her showing the sign?

They refer to her holding the sign. But it wasn’t as if she was just innocently holding a sign. She strapped a camera to her chest while deliberately violating school policy. It was a set up. Obviously, she expected to be confronted and wanted to capture the confrontation on video. Presumably, she didn’t want this footage just for the sake of having it, but to use it to make the school look bad. If that's not baiting Campus Safety into a confrontation, I don't know what is. Nothing is implied about throwing rocks or any such thing.

Your statement that this is only for a year is unsupported by any concrete evidence. In other words, it's a rumor. I'd be interested to see some evidence.

Agreed. It is just a rumor. But it's *all* rumor and speculation at this point, which is why I said I wanted to refrain from making a final judgment on the matter. The indication that it might be temporary comes from a press release of Gregg Cunningham’s: http://sethgruber.com/2013/06/05/susan-elliott-biola-university-director-of-nursing-orders-faculty-to-withhold-letters-of-reference-for-diana-jimenez-as-consequence-of-ms-jimenezs-display-of-abortion-photos/

That sure makes it sound like it would be rescinded in a year if she didn’t display any more abortion photos on campus. Cunningham tries to make it sound iffy that it would be rescinded if she complied, and that may be right. But if there’s anything Cunningham is known for, it’s for using rhetoric to distort the issue. And I just can’t imagine Dr. Elliott saying, “No, you can’t have any letters of recommendation for the rest of eternity.” If that’s what she meant, then I agree that it was far too harsh.

The arrogance of saying that this student deserves to have her career put on hold is, frankly, distasteful. As is the airy, let-them-eat-cake assumption from an evident position of privilege that just everyone can afford to put their employability on hold for a year.

I just don’t take public smear campaigns lightly. I believe what she did was truly awful, and that a harsh punishment is warranted. Maybe this punishment was too harsh, but I believe there should have been some sort of serious consequence for her actions.

I didn’t assume that she could go a year without employment. I assumed she could go a year without employment *as a nurse*. That doesn’t strike me as an arrogant assumption. She’s been living without employment as a nurse for the previous four years (probably five, given that she’s in the nursing program). Many students, including myself, get entry-level jobs when they first get out of college before moving on to their job of choice. Usually that’s enough to pay for necessities if one finds a cheap apartment and a roommate or two. This is what plenty of perfectly ordinary students do. It isn’t an option reserved for the privileged.


Mr. [Redacted], I appreciated the respectful tone of your letter to the Biola administration. That’s certainly more than can be said for the majority of anti-Biola people on the net. But I think your letter is ultimately poorly conceived. You have absolutely no idea how a student would be treated if she had an abortion while she was at Biola. All you are going on is that the associate dean of students mentioned there may have been some students who are healing from past abortions. He did not say any students had abortions *while they were students.* He didn’t say these were *unrepentant* students. Nor did he mention anything about how a student who had an abortion while a student would be disciplined. For all you know, all such students receive serious discipline.

I don’t know of any Biola students who have had abortions (thank God). So with regard to how Biola would treat them, all I can do is make an educated guess based on how the university has treated students in the past who have violated the student contract. If the school found out about a woman who (1) committed an abortion while a student, and (2) was unrepentant about it, my guess is that she would be immediately expelled. Students have been expelled for far less serious offenses than killing their babies.

There is absolutely no reason to think Biola is sending the message that killing babies isn’t a more serious offense than violating school policies about public displays of graphic images. To support such an assertion, you would have to know how Biola treats students who have aborted babies. But you don’t know that. There’s no evidence that a student who aborted a baby would receive less discipline than Miss Jimenez did. So please refrain from making that assertion until you have something to base it on.

That’s all I have to say about the matter. I hope Biola makes the right decision, whatever that might be, after they review Miss Jimenez’s appeal letter. What’s more, I hope Miss Jimenez will start directing her energies against those who *actually* support abortion. Her zeal is great, but it needs to be combined with some common sense.


On expulsion, let me clarify: I did mean expulsion from the campus, but I also assume that she would not be able to do anything during that last week before graduation--for example, if there were other things she needed to wrap up for her classes. Obviously, a student isn't able to carry out student functions while not being allowed to come onto the campus. If she had stuff in the dorms and were "forbidden to have a presence on campus," how would she get the stuff out? So expulsion from campus is not just expulsion for the next hour but is a bigger deal than that.

Thanks for the link to the more detailed report concerning Elliott. This woman is power hungry. Reading about that just makes me all the more angry. As far as Diana's "rehabilitation," my understanding is that Biola doesn't allow non-students to post on campus anyway by themselves, so Diana could only be involved in displays off-campus (such as those the CBR has threatened to make). So Elliott is trying to control her behavior off-campus during the coming year! A reference to "rehabilitation" is chilling and disgusting, smacking of communist re-education efforts. Presumably "rehabilitation" would also include her being _sorry_ for displaying this picture. In fact, it could include almost anything. Elliott is saying that this all shows a bad attitude by Diana, so I would guess her idea of "rehabilitation" would include Diana's conversion to Elliott's idea of right-think.

Therefore, this idea of rescinding the ban on letters only makes matters worse: We'll rescind the ban on your letters if you come around to our way of thinking. Control-freakish and bullying. Who the hell does Susan Elliott think she is? Two academics have now spontaneously said to me that Elliott should be fired for this. I'm coming to be of their way of thinking.

I assumed she could go a year without employment *as a nurse*. That doesn’t strike me as an arrogant assumption. She’s been living without employment as a nurse for the previous four years (probably five, given that she’s in the nursing program). Many students, including myself, get entry-level jobs when they first get out of college before moving on to their job of choice. Usually that’s enough to pay for necessities if one finds a cheap apartment and a roommate or two. This is what plenty of perfectly ordinary students do. It isn’t an option reserved for the privileged.

For the last four or five years she has been eligible, I would assume, for various forms of loans, grants, and other aid qua student. That of course ends when she is no longer a student. Students obtain a degree such as nursing with the understanding that they will be able to use it to get employment! They may even take their loans during school based on this expectation. The idea that she deserves to have this possibility blocked for _at least_ a year, and indefinitely if she does not grovel sufficiently before Susan Elliott, is really absurd and worse than absurd.

They refer to her holding the sign. But it wasn’t as if she was just innocently holding a sign. She strapped a camera to her chest while deliberately violating school policy. It was a set up. Obviously, she expected to be confronted and wanted to capture the confrontation on video. Presumably, she didn’t want this footage just for the sake of having it, but to use it to make the school look bad. If that's not baiting Campus Safety into a confrontation, I don't know what is. Nothing is implied about throwing rocks or any such thing.

So these phrases, including "creating a disruption," refer to what we already knew, merely holding the sign, while having a camera set up in such a way that she can record any confrontation that might occur without having to involve a second person? Cry me a river. Sheesh. It's "creating a disruption" and "baiting" if you're prepared to video? I have absolutely zero sympathy for the safety officer who got videotaped. Poor baby. Biola wouldn't look bad in this situation if Biola had behaved differently.

This, by the way, is precisely how some homosexual activists who came on campus were dealt with while I was attending.

Right. Exactly. But Diana isn't a homosexual activist, is she? Biola can't have it both ways. On the one hand, they want to tell us that fighting abortion is a huge priority for them and therefore that Diana's message and goal is the same as theirs. On the other hand, they want to treat Diana very much like an activist who is completely attacking the school's values and _defend_ their action on the grounds that "this is how we treated the homosexual activists last year." That is _exactly_ what I meant about priorities speaking. If Diana is being treated like people whose message is contrary to that of the school, then this in itself sends a message to the public!

Biola Alum,

You are correct about one thing -- I am missing a few pieces in the puzzle. I don't know, exactly, how Biola treats students who have unrepentantly sought and received an abortion. Perhaps Biola is strict with such women, and perhaps Biola even expels them. As for women who repent -- well, they get to stay and graduate, presumably without any bans on letters of recommendation. As I noted in my letter, I think this might possibly be the right call. (I'm not really sure though. Good judgment is surely important, and perhaps the best thing would be to consider each case individually.)

You are claiming (I hope I understand you correctly) that the relevant difference between Miss Jimenez and women who have received abortions and who nevertheless remain at Biola is that the latter have repented and Miss Jimenez hasn't. I'm don't think this is the correct way to view this situation.

I'm glad to hear that Miss Jimenez was allowed to graduate. That was the right call. As someone who has a background in security and law enforcement, I do not particularly care for the behavior of the the individual responsible for campus security in the video. His choice of words and his threats are neither professional nor particularly effective. That being said, security is a tough job and people who take such jobs often do not get the respect they deserve -- they often have few enforcement tools at their disposal, so it's difficult to enforce compliance with the rules and the law. Furthermore, it isn't as if he would have the final say on whether Miss Jimenez can graduate. His job is to enforce the rules as directed by his leadership. If he caused Miss Jimenez irritation or worry with what he said, then she can simply get over it. She could have responded in a more mature manner to him.

The administration, unlike the chief of campus security, has the benefit of being able to sit at a desk and think carefully about how best to resolve the situation. Yes, Miss Jimenez disobeyed the rules, and she should probably face some sort of disciplinary action. Even so, let's remember that her crime is the result of her zeal *against the greatest evil in US history*. She is so unhappy with the murder of hundreds of thousands of babies every year (perhaps even a million!) that she is having trouble knowing how to respond appropriately. Call me crazy, but that sounds like a great problem to have. If that's the worst disciplinary case that Biola has to deal with, then -- what an embarrassment of disciplinary riches! This seems a far better outcome of character than we see in students who are so deeply hurt and offended by the posters of aborted babies. I understand that Biola wanted to regulate the display of such posters heavily, and perhaps this is the best policy. (I doubt it, but I'll concede the point anyway.) It seems clear to me that given the magnitude of the evil of abortion, it is far better to graduate students like Miss Jimenez over students who may consider themselves "pro-life" but who nevertheless seem to think that one's stance on ongoing -- and legal! -- murder should be a private matter, or at least not *too* public a matter.

The ban on letters of reference is absurd and petty. Even if Miss Jimenez is a mess -- though to be clear, I'm not saying she is -- it seems clear to me that a mess like her is better than a well put-together "pro-life" student who is *offended* by great zeal in the fight against abortion.

Biola screwed up and they ought to fix the situation by allowing Miss Jimenez to receive letters of reference from any willing faculty.

As far as Diana's "rehabilitation," my understanding is that Biola doesn't allow non-students to post on campus anyway by themselves, so Diana could only be involved in displays off-campus (such as those the CBR has threatened to make). So Elliott is trying to control her behavior off-campus during the coming year!

This is not a very persuasive bit of reasoning. Why would you think that Miss Jimenez could only be involved in off-campus demonstrations? Because it’s against the rules? She has already been involved in a demonstration that was against the rules. That’s how she got in trouble in the first place.

Given that it’s a genuine possibility that she might demonstrate on campus again, her “rehabilitation” (if that was even the word used) may very well have meant ceasing from demonstrating on campus. Indeed, given that it was an *on-campus* demonstration that she was in trouble for, it seems more reasonable to assume that her "rehabilitation" consisted in refraining from any more *on-campus* demonstrations.

And all the talk of "right-think" and comparisons to communist re-education efforts (!) is just unjustified speculation.

In any case, the controversy is over. Biola has updated its press release to affirm that the decision whether or not to write a reference letter for a student is up to the discretion of individual faculty members. Biola didn’t clarify what the actions of Dr. Elliot actually were, citing privacy. The only detailed pieces of information we have to go on with respect to the actions of Dr. Elliot are the rants of Gregg Cunningham. So we’ll probably never know the all the details.

I think Biola made the right decision. As I indicated above, I agreed with critics of Dr. Elliot that decisions about reference letters should be up to individual faculty members. I just didn’t think it was the *harshness* of the punishment that was suspect. My thoughts on that haven’t changed.

If Diana is being treated like people whose message is contrary to that of the school, then this in itself sends a message to the public!

In context, when I was referring to her being treated like the homosexual activists were treated, I was referring to the disciplinary actions which were threatened by Campus Safety. My point was that this sort of reaction to an unlawful demonstration on campus is normal and not a “nuclear option.”

Of course, if you look at the broader picture, Miss Jimenez was treated differently. Firstly, the homosexual activists were *actually* banned from campus, while Miss Jimenez was only threatened with that. Secondly, and more importantly, Miss Jimenez was allowed and even encouraged to educate students about abortion on campus. Biola did not allow nor encourage the homosexual activists to promote their views on campus. They weren’t offered an opportunity for a panel discussion; they were simply told to leave.

With regard to which specific disciplinary actions were threatened by Campus Safety, they were indeed treated the same. But that’s not evidence of misplaced priorities. That’s evidence that Biola applies its policies about public demonstrations in a fair and consistent manner. That is how it should be.

I should add that after thinking about it a bit, it has become quite obvious that issuing a fine would not have been an effective response. I conceded too much when I said Campus Safety could have taken that route. CBR has expressed a willingness to spend *millions* of dollars on assaulting Biola students with graphic images. They would happily pay any fines issued by Campus Safety. Given that Campus Safety has to enforce school policies about public demonstrations, I see no alternative besides threatening to call the police to escort her off campus. Issuing a fine simply wouldn’t have provided an incentive for Miss Jimenez to stop demonstrating unlawfully. And that’s what Campus Safety needed to do: provide an incentive for her to stop.

Now for a few comments on Mr. [Redacted]’s response:

I actually think there are numerous relevant differences between Miss Jimenez and a repentant student who has had an abortion. But I don't really want to go into that too much, since I don't know for sure how Biola deals with repentant students who have had abortions. My *guess* is that they would offer such students counseling. Such a student isn't in ongoing rebellion, and she doesn't need to be told how awful her deed was. She knows that. (She certainly doesn't need someone to shove an abortion photo in her face.) She needs someone to come alongside and offer her godly, compassionate counsel.

You’ve mentioned that the evilness of abortion is a relevant factor. Abortion is, indeed, a tremendous evil. Like you said, it is the greatest evil in American history. Educating students about the horror of abortion is a noble and just end. But the end doesn’t always justify the means. Some ways of educating students about abortion are unethical. Going about it in a way that violates school policy is not an ethical way. Attacking a staunchly pro-life university with a slanderous and vicious YouTube video is not an ethical way.

I should also be clear that I don’t think abortion ought to be a “private” matter in the least. It should be *very* public. I applaud pro-life groups who carry out awareness campaigns through putting up (non-graphic) billboards and purchasing television and internet advertising. I think the job pro-life groups did in bringing awareness to Gosnell’s crimes was terrific. In fact, I think it was a perfect example of how people can use careful reasoning and detailed verbal descriptions to communicate the horror of abortion without forcing graphic images into people’s faces. I even think the use of graphic abortion images is appropriate and effective in some contexts. I just don’t think an outdoor area on Biola’s campus is one of those contexts.

It’s sort of like raising awareness about sex trafficking. It shouldn’t be a purely private matter. It should certainly be talked about in public, but certain contexts simply are not appropriate. You wouldn’t talk about the gruesome details about sex trafficking when children are present, for example. This is so even though those gruesome details need to be widely known.

Moreover, your suggestion that students think one's "stance" on abortion should be a private matter is completely unjustified. No one has suggested any such thing. Miss Jimenez was allowed to express her stance on abortion in public at Biola. Some people simply think it is inappropriate to use large, graphic photos in public to express one's stance on Biola's campus.

Even if Miss Jimenez is a mess -- though to be clear, I'm not saying she is -- it seems clear to me that a mess like her is better than a well put-together "pro-life" student who is *offended* by great zeal in the fight against abortion.

The use of scare quotes around the term “pro-life” really isn’t fair. Just because a person disagrees with certain tactics of a given pro-life group does not mean that person is not genuinely pro-life. And no one is offended by her zeal. People are offended by the way in which she acted on that zeal. So while she may be better than any student who is offended by her zeal, I don’t know of any such student.

Biola has updated its press release to affirm that the decision whether or not to write a reference letter for a student is up to the discretion of individual faculty members.

I read it. The relevant para. says:

We seek to come alongside our students and graduates to support them in all professional pursuits, including by giving individual faculty members the freedom to provide reference letters for students upon request. This commitment has not changed.


I mean, o-kay, but in essence, this update sorta pretends in a sideways way that _maybe_ the letters were never blocked. So Biola gets to try to have it both ways. On the one hand, there is every reason (sorry, don't give me that about the "rants" of Cunningham) to think that Elliott did block the letters. In answer to that, Biola defenders can say, "Hey, they say individual faculty members have freedom to provide reference letters, so they made it right, right?" On the other hand, they get to use the citation of "privacy" and a phrase like "This commitment has not changed" to insinuate that _maybe_ Elliott never did what Diana said she did and _maybe_ Diana is a liar. That's a pretty passive-aggressive use of privacy claims. Perhaps they could ask Diana to _waive_ this "right to privacy" that might somehow prevent them from verifying what she has said so that, instead of giving people an excuse for calling her a liar, they could say openly, "After discussion and prayer, we have decided that the action of one of our administrators was unjustified and have made it clear to all our faculty members that they are free to write Miss Jimenez letters of recommendation." Btw, I don't think there are any privacy laws against admitting wrong-doing of an administrator. In fact, I'm quite sure there are _not_.

assaulting Biola students with graphic images

Over-the-top rhetoric. No, this isn't "assaulting" people.

Attacking a staunchly pro-life university with a slanderous and vicious YouTube video is not an ethical way.

I have yet to hear of any way in which the video was slanderous. "Slanderous" implies that it included deliberate falsehoods. As far as I can ascertain, that isn't true. "Vicious" may be in the eye of the beholder. I thought the video was powerful. As I said in the main post, it was especially powerful to interlace the President's speech about being taken out of your comfort zone with all this fuss about showing a graphic picture for one hour on the campus. I don't call that vicious in the slightest.

There are a number of different ways the video is slanderous, but I’ll just mention the ways which seem most obvious to me.

(1)The video claims that Biola is involved in an abortion “cover-up.” That is ludicrous. Biola clearly exposes the evil of abortion in many ways. In its classes, chapels, and seminars (some of which are online for the entire world to see) Biola has presented reasons for thinking abortion is wrong and encouraged students and others to fight against it. Students are allowed and even encouraged to host events and information tables to educate students about abortion. It will not do to rationalize this language by saying that Biola is covering up abortion *photos*. The school allowed the use of abortion photos in enclosed spaces, where everyone who is willing could come and see them. This is not a “cover-up.”

If you still aren’t convinced, consider this: Biola only allowed a display of graphic images of the Holocaust on campus because the images were displayed in an enclosed space. Thus the only reasons that exist for thinking Biola is covering up abortion also exist for thinking that Biola is covering up the Holocaust. So Biola is covering up abortion if and only if it is covering up the Holocaust. But Biola is not covering up the Holocaust. Thus Biola is not covering up abortion. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or culpably ignorant.

(2)The video claims that Miss Jimenez was threatened with expulsion. As I have already pointed out, that is untrue. One could try to defend the claim (along the lines you suggested) by claiming that “expulsion” simply meant being banned from being physically present on campus. But, in an academic context, “expulsion” means the revocation of a person’s membership as a student. Expulsion was never threatened.

(3)The video claimed that she was “smacked down” for “speaking truth” into Biola. But that isn’t what she was confronted about. She was confronted for deliberately violating school policies about public displays. She was free to “speak truth” on Biola’s campus. She could even use abortion photos to “speak truth.” It’s simply that there are policies which she must follow concerning when, where, and by what means she can “speak truth.” She didn’t follow them, so she was confronted.

Lest you be tempted to rationalize this language as well, consider this case: Suppose someone stood in the middle of the Vatican with a large sign, yelling his understanding of the gospel at the top of his lungs. (Let’s assume this person’s understanding of the gospel is the same as the Vatican’s.) Then imagine Vatican security confronts him and tells him to stop. Now would it be fair to the Vatican to say it “smacked down” this person for speaking truth into the Vatican? Of course not. That would be highly misleading. Its security confronted the person for violating its rules. So, neither is it fair to Biola to say Miss Jimenez was “smacked down” for speaking truth.

(4)There are ways of being deceptive and slandering a person or institution other than explicitly asserting a falsehood. By withholding relevant facts, one can paint a misleading picture. This video obviously does that. Nothing is said about the fact that this was the *second* incident with Miss Jimenez and graphic abortion displays. Nothing is said about the fact that Miss Jimenez was given multiple opportunities to educate students about abortion without publically displaying graphic photos. Nothing is said about the fact that she was allowed to display those very photos inside a classroom or other enclosed space. Nothing is said about Biola’s many pro-life activities. All those facts are relevant to evaluating both the claims made and the actions and characters of the parties involved. If those facts aren’t relevant, it’s a bit puzzling that so many people have changed their minds about the situation after learning of those facts.

Over-the-top rhetoric. No, this isn't "assaulting" people.

No, it is not over-the-top. To “assault” a person is to attack a person. It need not be physical. You can’t honestly be claiming that what Cunningham is threatening to do to Biola (airplanes and all!) is not an attack on Biola in some sense of the word. It’s harassment at the very least. You may think such an attack is justified, but it is still an attack.

But that’s not the point of that paragraph anyway. If it makes you feel better, switch “assaulting” with “enlightening.” The point I was making still stands.

While I agree that, most likely, Dr. Elliott did ban the letters, I’m still suspicious about the details of it all. It strikes me as odd that we haven’t seen the email in which Dr. Elliott allegedly bans these letters. (At least *I* haven’t seen it. Maybe it’s out there somewhere.) This is so even though Cunningham has released emails which were between Miss Jimenez and Matthew Hooper as well as emails which were between Miss Jimenez and himself. If he has that email in his possession, it seems like something he would want to share. It would be gold. But he hasn’t. That makes me suspicious that either the contents of the email are different than has been claimed, or it contains some information that would put Miss Jimenez in a bad light or Dr. Elliot in a positive light. Anyway, I suspect that there is some information that we aren’t being told. And Miss Jimenez wouldn’t waive her privacy rights about anything that puts her in a bad light.

I'm sorry, I simply do not agree. You're stretching the concept of "slanderous."

Numbers 1 and 3 are sheer matters of one's opinion concerning the entire incident. It isn't slander for Diana to believe that more over-the-top language is a correct way of speaking of the incident. Just as it isn't slander for you to use the phrase "assaulting people with these pictures." I myself wouldn't use _either_ set of language, but neither is slander. Both are manifestations of underlying disagreement.

Number 2 is a debatable matter of interpretation. I've already discussed the line-blurring where a student is concerned. How is the student supposed to continue as a student in any way necessary while not being allowed on campus?

Number 4 is just baloney. You want the video to be what you consider "fair and balanced" and are going to use the word "slander" if it isn't. Well, that's nonsense. Of course it's from a particular perspective and making a particular narrow point, but not everything that isn't "fair and balanced" that doesn't tell the other guy's "side of the story" (such as all his activities on a certain side of an issue) is ergo slanderous. Biola is free to do that and has amply done so.

Moreover: That this was the "second incident" is not to Diana's discredit nor, particularly, to the school's credit. I went into that in great detail in the main post. The first so-called "incident" was a display for which she had _permission_, which the school didn't inquire into in enough detail and then rescinded its permission for because it disliked the content. The video is meant to have a certain tight structure to it, and explaining all of that would have diffused that structure, but that information _is_ included in the accompanying article by Jill Stanek, which is entirely pro-Diana, and which I would assume you probably consider "slanderous" as well, given the way you throw that term around. So is the information that they offered her the "opportunity" to have the display she wanted indoors, and so is her disagreement with that offer.

It strikes me as odd that we haven’t seen the email in which Dr. Elliott allegedly bans these letters.

It appears that Elliott told Diana what she was doing in a face-to-face conversation.

That makes me suspicious that either the contents of the email are different than has been claimed, or it contains some information that would put Miss Jimenez in a bad light or Dr. Elliot in a positive light. Anyway, I suspect that there is some information that we aren’t being told.

Very unconvincing. Sheer, unsupported speculation and argument from silence. Your bias is really showing here.

This once again shows that Biola's alleged turnaround on the letter issue really hasn't gone far enough. By doing it in the way they have done it, they have cast doubt on Diana's honesty without having to come out clearly and say either that they apologize or, on the other hand, deny the allegation about the letters.

They are using FERPA in a passive-aggressive fashion. Viz.: FERPA didn't prevent them from telling about the various private conversations which they had with Diana, but now they are saying that FERPA prevents them from saying something clear (though not super-specific) like: "We acknowledge that an administrator made a mistake in relation to this student concerning letters of recommendation, and we apologize for that and have made it right." Just that. Nothing further required. No details.

It isn't slander for Diana to believe that more over-the-top language is a correct way of speaking of the incident.

Well, I'm sorry, but it *is* slander to use "over-the-top" language if that language is deceptive and misleading. You can’t defend every untruth by simply claiming the language is a bit “over-the-top.” It’s not a cover-up, and you know it. And saying Biola is smacking her down for speaking the truth is silly and highly misleading. That isn’t stretching the concept of slander in the least.

Would you fault me for claiming someone is slandering Biola if he claimed it was covering up the Holocaust? I hope not.

How is the student supposed to continue as a student in any way necessary while not being allowed on campus?

Papers are often submitted online these days. For those which are not, she could hand them over to a friend to turn in. She would be free to make special arrangements with any willing professors for anything that would normally be done on campus. She could get lecture notes from classmates. And so on and so forth. None of those options would be open to an expelled person. But that’s not even relevant to the issue at hand. Even if the consequences of the threatened punishment would be tough, that doesn’t make the claim that she was threatened with expulsion accurate. Expulsion was not threatened.

Of course it's from a particular perspective and making a particular narrow point, but not everything that isn't "fair and balanced" that doesn't tell the other guy's "side of the story" (such as all his activities on a certain side of an issue) is ergo slanderous.

My complaint wasn’t that it merely didn’t tell the other side of the story. My complaint was that it left out highly relevant facts which resulted in a distortion of the situation. Any rational person aware of the facts I mentioned would immediately conclude that Biola is *not* covering up abortion, for example. Presenting the appearance that Biola was covering up abortion was entirely dependent upon omitting those facts—facts of which both Miss Jimenez and Cunningham were well aware. Obviously, people get slandered by the omission of relevant facts all the time. Just watch a few political ads.

Now suppose I’m wrong and none of this meets the (apparently) very stringent standards of slander. Still, there is something ethically dubious about the language in the video. Even you admitted you wouldn’t use that language. Presumably, that isn’t a mere tactical preference of yours, but the result of a belief about the moral rightness of using that sort of language in framing the issue. If that’s right, then the video was not an ethical way of going about educating students about abortion, which was what I was claiming by the disputed statement anyway.

but that information _is_ included in the accompanying article by Jill Stanek, which is entirely pro-Diana, and which I would assume you probably consider "slanderous" as well, given the way you throw that term around. So is the information that they offered her the "opportunity" to have the display she wanted indoors, and so is her disagreement with that offer.

What’s the point of all this? I was talking about the video, not the Stanek article.

It appears that Elliott told Diana what she was doing in a face-to-face conversation.

When I first read Cunningham’s account, I read it as saying Jimenez met with Dr. Elliot *after* she was informed of the punishment in order to complain about it. Thus it would be most likely that she was informed of the punishment by email. After reading it again, I see that it admits of more than one interpretation. If Miss Jimenez was told about the punishment face-to-face, then there’s obviously nothing suspicious about the absence of such an email! If it *was* via email, then it is in fact suspicious that, of all the emails that have been released, we haven’t seen the one which would be most helpful to Cunningham’s cause. It wouldn’t be crazy to see that as a red flag. However, since I don’t know for sure how Miss Jimenez was told, I’ll retract that claim.

And I happily admit that I give Biola, not the activist group, the benefit of the doubt. There’s good reason for that.

Even you admitted you wouldn’t use that language. Presumably, that isn’t a mere tactical preference of yours, but the result of a belief about the moral rightness of using that sort of language in framing the issue. If that’s right, then the video was not an ethical way of going about educating students about abortion, which was what I was claiming by the disputed statement anyway.

If you're going to go by what I said, then I guess you'd have to push me to say that you are being "unethical" for saying that Diana's using graphic abortion pictures in public is "assault." You will remember that I paralleled your over-the-top language with her over-the-top language ("covering up the reality of abortion" or words to that effect). I did that on purpose. The fact is that someone who thinks as Diana does about the importance of graphic pictures _does_ believe that it is a kind of sanitizing and covering up to refuse to allow those pictures in a public setting such as the middle of campus. I think that's an over-the-top evaluation, but I also think your evaluation of her use of the pictures as "assault" is over-the-top. Neither accusation is therefore unethical. Such usages just show that some people on both sides think in a rather extreme manner about this matter of using or not using graphic pictures of abortion in public.

What’s the point of all this? I was talking about the video, not the Stanek article.

The point of it is that Diana obviously wasn't trying to hide or cover up some of those "relevant facts" that you were so concerned about, simply because she didn't include them in the video. The video was a tightly constructed artifact with its own structure and logic. It works very well for what it is. She readily and apparently happily gave additional information, such as about the first "incident" and about her negotiations with Biola and their offer to her, to Stanek, one of her strong supporters, for inclusion in a full article explaining the story. The fact that all those details weren't included in the video doesn't make the video "slanderous." It's just ridiculous that you can't see that one makes a short video with a particular message and that its power depends on its structure and flow. One doesn't go into every detail of the story in such a video, but that doesn't mean those other details are being deliberately covered up. Nor, in my opinion, do they help the school out, because I wrote the main post after reading the story _and_ seeing the video, and my opinion was what it was.

Papers are often submitted online these days. For those which are not, she could hand them over to a friend to turn in. She would be free to make special arrangements with any willing professors for anything that would normally be done on campus. She could get lecture notes from classmates. And so on and so forth. None of those options would be open to an expelled person. But that’s not even relevant to the issue at hand. Even if the consequences of the threatened punishment would be tough, that doesn’t make the claim that she was threatened with expulsion accurate.

Yeah, "tough," as in, oops, sorry, you can't take your finals because your teacher isn't willing or able to make "arrangements" to give a final exam to a student who has been expelled from campus. Oh, sorry, you're supposed to be a graduating senior? Oh, well, guess you'll have to take incompletes and not graduate until you can work out this little matter with administration. _Maybe_ it just so happens that the threat was after finals week, but I don't actually know that, and by your definition of what does and doesn't count as "expulsion," it really shouldn't matter, because it shouldn't, on pain of slander, be called "expulsion" either way! I think you're really digging quite a hole here. First the claim was that using the word "expulsion" was outright slanderous. Now the claim is that it's _still_ slanderous because _maybe_ a student who isn't allowed on campus at all could _somehow_ find a way to finish out a semester, take exams, etc. That's starting to sound a little desperate to me.

To slander a person or institution is to say something which is false or misleading and which damages the reputation of the person or institution. I’ve given reasons for thinking three specific claims were false and misleading. And these claims obviously damage the reputation of Biola. You are free to disagree, but thus far I have seen no good reason to think they are true. It’s reasonable for me to think they are false and damaging. So it’s reasonable for me to think they are slanderous.

You keep on mentioning that Miss Jimenez would think those claims are accurate. I think if she does, she’s being culpably irrational. But even if she does believe those claims, it doesn’t matter. You can slander someone while fully believing you are speaking the truth. No doubt many people genuinely believe President Obama is secretly a Muslim. But going about saying so is still slander, no matter how fervently one believes it to be true.

Of course, I don’t agree that my claim that Cunningham (not Miss Jimenez—as you were claiming) is planning on assaulting Biola is analogous to the claim that Biola is engaged in an “abortion cover-up.” To assault an institution is to attack or assail it. Cunningham is planning on displaying large abortion photos at all of Biola’s entrances and flying airplanes over school events with huge banners of graphic abortion photos trailing them. Biola has clearly expressed that it does not want these photos on its campus. This is obviously unwanted harassment. It’s all about making Biola so incredibly uncomfortable that it will capitulate to Cunningham’s demands. I think using the word “assault” (in a non-physical sense, of course) is a perfectly apt description of this.

Of course, if it is false to say Cunningham is attacking or assaulting Biola, then it would indeed be slander to say so. But I just don’t think that is false. I think it is true.

The claim that Biola is engaged in an “abortion cover-up,” on the other hand, is something which I believe to be false and misleading. I gave reasons for thinking so. One of those reasons was the following: It would be false to say Biola is engaged in a Holocaust cover-up. But the evidence for an abortion cover-up is no better than the evidence for a Holocaust cover-up. So it is false to say that Biola is engaged in an abortion cover-up.

Maybe you think there is more to slander than saying something false and damaging. That’s fine. Claiming that Biola is engaged in an “abortion cover-up” and that Miss Jimenez was “smacked down for speaking truth” is still misleading. But it’s not right to go about making misleading claims. So making that video in that way was not the right way to go about promoting the pro-life cause, which was the whole point of what I was saying.

As I was trying to point out with a question, the content of an article which is distinct from the video is not relevant to determining whether the video is misleading. And whether the omission of specific information in the video was misleading was the issue under dispute. No reasonable person would say, for example, that a given person’s omission of relevant information in a congressional hearing couldn’t be misleading because he provided that information to the New York Times a few days later. That simply wouldn’t make any sense. So neither does it make any sense to say that video can’t be misleading because Miss Jimenez provided the relevant information to Jill Stanek a few days later.

Sure, maybe the video would lose some “power” if more information was included. But that’s the problem. A good amount of the video’s power is dependent upon omitting important information. If that information were included, the claims that Biola is covering up abortion and that Miss Jimenez was smacked down for speaking truth would lose all plausibility.

Since your reference to "assault" was to assaulting _students_ with the _images_, it should apply to Diana as well. One would have normally read that initial sentence as referring to showing such images to people unexpectedly without their consent, etc. In other words, to standing in the middle of Biola's campus with a large, graphic sign. This is what Diana did to "Biola's students" as well, so the distinction between Cunningham and Diana doesn't seem to matter to the accusation of "assaulting Biola students with graphic images."

Actually, truth has always been taken to be an absolute defense to accusations of slander. Therefore, if the person making the claim believes it to be true, he believes that he has a defense to the accusation of slander. In more recent actual legal cases surrounding slander, there has usually been the requirement that the person in question had actual malice in making the false statements.

Sincere disagreement over ideological terminology just really doesn't come even close, here. And that's what we have and what you don't want to acknowledge. You have an ideological disagreement about the use of graphic imagery, with polarization both directions. Getting on your high horse about people being "misleading" because they disagree with you about this ideological matter is simply pointless.

Sure, maybe the video would lose some “power” if more information was included. But that’s the problem. A good amount of the video’s power is dependent upon omitting important information.

No. Actually, it comes from the President's speech and on the brisk interposition of that speech and what happened to Diana. You would do well to ponder on that, because frankly, I think you have something of an artistic and rhetorical tin ear, here. And it might make you think again about the use of graphic images and how the school could have handled this better and made itself look less ridiculous--yes, gasp, by _giving in_ and letting her show her picture for one hour. It was a stroke of brilliance to use the President's speech in that way. It works. It makes one think, and really, it should. It makes the school look small-minded, childish, and hypocritical.

And I say this as a person not overly fond of the unexpected display of graphic imagery. But the President is telling people to grow up and get out of their comfort zone, and then the school couldn't handle this.

For the sake of posterity, Joshua "[redacted]" is me. I asked the folks at WWWW to hide my full name upon seeing evidence that faculty hiring committees and others at colleges use google to look for evidence of right-leaning opinions and then choosing not to hire someone when they find it. I wanted to make it harder on hiring committees to find reasons not to hire me when I apply for a job.

I still want a job teaching at a college when I receive my PhD. On the other hand, I don't want one at the cost of hiding what I believe. And maybe (hopefully) I was wrong about whether hiring committees care that much about my political beliefs.

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