There are an awful lot of important issues that never receive judicial review - and thus never contribute to the body of jurisprudence - because the cost of bringing legal action is prohibitively high.
In the instant case, I would have liked to have seen the issues fleshed out more. I'm not sure, but I don't think I share your belief that this is necessarily a freedom of speech issue, although I do admit that I think that we Americans in general, and the ACLU in particular, can sometimes go a bit overboard on the sanctity of free speech. Hate speech, for example, or incitement to violence, are forms of speech that I do not believe should be protected. But setting that aside for the moment, I think there's a really interesting question here of the extent to which academic institutions and professional associations need to be deferential to persons who refuse to practice their professions on religious/moral grounds. The analogy that springs to my mind is Catholic pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills. Certainly, I understand that Catholics may have religious convictions that cause them to perceive contraception as sinful, and that's great, more power to them, they should not be required to use contraception. But the necessary function of a pharmacist is to dispense those medications that a physician and his/her patient determine are appropriate for the patient's health and well being. If your religious beliefs prevent you from fulfilling that function, terrific, no one's forcing you to practice that profession. But is it appropriate to voluntarily enter into a profession and then refuse to perform its duties because of your religious beliefs? To me, this seems analogous to the incident described in the article. The student is not merely expressing a personal opinion about homosexuality, which certainly would be an expression of free speech. Rather, she's refusing to fulfill the requirements of a degree and a profession, but still demanding that the university award her the degree despite her refusal to fulfill its requirements. That seems very different to me than merely expressing a personal opinion.
= new reply since forum marked as read
