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Lawmaker says his daughter’s professor required LGBTQ advocacy assignment for class
A Utah lawmaker who says a professor required his daughter to do LGBTQ advocacy work as a classroom assignment recently introduced legislation that would require universities to offer religious exemptions in such cases.
A Utah House committee voted to advance the Higher Education Student Belief Accommodation act, House Bill 204, last week.
Its sponsor, Rep. Mike Petersen, R-Logan, told The Salt Lake Tribune that his daughter’s experience as a college student is what prompted the bill.
According to the report, “Petersen said he decided to run the bill after his daughter, who is completing a master of social work program outside of Utah, was required as part of her coursework to write a letter to a local lawmaker advocating in favor of pro-LGBTQ policies.”
His legislation would require public colleges and universities in Utah to establish a process for “belief accommodation” for assignments in required courses. The process would allow students to request an accommodation if the assignment violates their “sincerely held religious and conscience beliefs.”
This does not necessarily mean students would be allowed to skip assignments; professors could provide alternatives instead, the report states.
Additionally, under the bill, professors would be banned from “compel[ing] a student to publicly take or communicate a specified position on a matter of public concern as the student’s own, including by requiring a student to write a letter to a lawmaker, write a letter to an editor, write an article for publication, publish an opinion online or on social media, or create or publish a podcast.”
However, the legislation has received pushback from some scholars.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, several faculty members testified against the bill last week, arguing that “universities are supposed to challenge students to see new things they may not otherwise encounter, based on their worldviews.”
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