The lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University for dismissing a graduate student in counseling who objected to counseling gay clients in a manner that affirmed their sexual orientation is still pending before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The university prevailed in the district court. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has filed an amicus brief supporting the graduate student's position that her dismissal is a First Amendment violation. But meanwhile, in the 11th circuit, a panel asked to decide a factually similar case, Keeton v Anderson, agreed with the Michigan district court that the First Amendment does not confer a right to impose one's beliefs in counseling. Of particular interest to the legal profession is this analogy from the opinion:
Just as a medical school would be permitted to bar a student who refused to administer blood transfusions for religious reasons from participating in clinical rotations, so ASU may prohibit Keeton from participating in its clinical practicum if she refuses to administer the treatment it has deemed appropriate. Every profession has its own ethical codes and dictates. When someone voluntarily chooses to enter a profession, he or she must comply with its rules and ethical requirements. Lawyers must present legal arguments on behalf of their clients, notwithstanding their personal views. Judges must apply the law, even when they disagree with it. So too counselors must refrain from imposing their moral and religious values on their clients.Finally, the Supreme Court has hardly indicated an intention to limit a school’s power to require its students to demonstrate whether they grasp a particular lesson. A school must, for instance, be free to give a failing grade to a student who refuses to answer a test question for religious reasons, or who refuses to write a paper defending a position with which the student disagrees ... No doubt, a law school would be permitted to require a student who expressed an intent to indiscriminately disclose her client’s secrets or violate another of the state’s bar rules to take extra ethics classes before letting the student participate in a school- run clinic in which the student would be representing actual clients. These actions, like ASU’s officials’ imposition of the remediation plan, are the types of academic decisions that are subject to significant deference, not exacting constitutional scrutiny.
