Catholic university employee suspended for ‘denying transgenderism’ shares her side
A Catholic university suspended an employee
last month for telling students that there are only two genders.
The employee’s husband told LifeSiteNews that
his wife was suspended for two weeks and faces ongoing hostility from
Jesuit-run Loyola Marymount University for her Catholic beliefs.
LMU’s Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) is
working with the Los Angeles Police Department to investigate an alleged “hate
crime” that occurred during the Jesuit university’s “Rainbow Week” last month, The
Los Angeles Loyolan reported.
The “hate crime” that allegedly occurred consisted of an LMU Alumni Relations
employee defending the Catholic Church’s teaching on human sexuality to three
student workers from the LGBT Student Services Office.
According to a press release from LMU’s Gender
Sexuality Alliance, LGBT Student Services put up signs advertising Rainbow Week
events and “depicting facts about LGBTQ+ issues.” Sometime between 9:30
a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on April 14, the signs were “removed and trashed, hidden
next to a nearby trash can.” Students from LGBT Student Services put the
fliers back up when “an LMU employee emerged from Von der Ahe building and
aggressively confronted the students. The students engaged her in
conversation and she replied hatefully,” according to the press
release.
The employee’s husband said that his wife
removed the signs because she saw no indication that the university had
approved them and they were clearly contradictory to the university’s Catholic
mission. The employee asked the students if they were authorized to post
the signs, her husband said, and the students said they were.
The employee had a civil conversation with the
students, her husband said, and they shook hands at the end of it.
“At no time was any one of us hostile to each
other,” the LMU employee said in her official statement about the incident,
which her husband provided to LifeSiteNews. “The dialogue never got
heated or out of control. No one asked to stop or indicated they were
being ‘hated’ on or hurt. The girls engaged me in the dialogue, I
answered their questions, and gave my opinion and they gave me theirs.”
“The messaging on the signs [was] very
offensive to me as a Catholic working on a Catholic campus,” the employee
said. “The messaging was very anti-Catholic and a direct hit against the
principles of the faith. Every time I walked by them I experienced great
sorrow and an aching pain within the very depths of [my] soul. My
conscience was telling me this is not right.”
The employee continued:
When I saw the students placing the signs, I
asked if they had permission to put up the signs. They indicated they
were with the LGBTQ+ group and that they were given permission by Public Safety
and the ‘real estate’ was reserved for rainbow week. I didn’t know it was
rainbow week, nothing on the signs stated [it] was “rainbow” week, nor that
they had permission to put them up.
They asked
if I read them and I indicated I did, all of them. They expressed
excitement that I had read them, stating[,] ‘Great[,] no one comes up to us to
dialogue, we welcome your dialogue.’ We then engaged in what I thought
was a healthy ‘dialogue’, the word they chose to use for our engaged
conversation. I felt it was a good exchange of ideas and opinions.
‘The girls tried to bait her’
According to the Gender Sexuality Alliance,
the LMU employee “[denied] the existence of transgender people,” and claimed
that only men and women exist. The LMU employee apparently also referred
to one of the students as a “man,” despite his “gender non-conforming
identity.”
The employee’s husband said that his wife told
the students that she loves everyone and that she’s called to love everyone.
“A couple of times the girls tried to bait
her,” into saying something hateful, he said, but his wife simply expressed the
Catholic view that men and women are perfectly made for a procreative union
with each other.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,
“Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity”
(CCC 2333).
According to LMU’s own rules,
on-campus advertising “must be compatible with the University’s mission.” And
according to LMU’s mission statement, “The
University is institutionally committed to Roman Catholicism and takes its
fundamental inspiration from the combined heritage of the Jesuits, the
Marymount Sisters, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. This Catholic
identity and religious heritage distinguish LMU from other universities and
provide touchstones for understanding our threefold mission.”
California Catholic Daily printed
an email from the accused employee’s husband, which the husband referred
LifeSiteNews to as an accurate account of the incident:
Yesterday (Thursday) my wife came home from
work very excited and happy about a conversation she had with a couple of
students at work. She has worked at Loyola Marymount for the last 15 years in
the Alumni department. The students were placing signs along the walkway of the
University promoting among other things, “PanSexuality”, meaning any and all
sexual preferences. These girls were member of the LGBTQ group at LMU. LMU
still calls itself a Jesuit Catholic University.
At the time my wife was talking to alum, who
thankfully heard the entire exchange. After determining they had permission to
post the signs, the group engaged in a what my wife thought was a very good
dialogue of ideas and opinions. The girls were posting signs promoting the
various sexual activities and orientations of the LGBTQ. My wife is Catholic
and a strong supporter of the Church, marriage and family, and Catholic
morality. Of particular focus was the girls promotion of what they label
“PanSexual” i.e. someone who participates (or prefers) every kind of sexual
encounter. One of the girls identified herself as lesbian and accused my wife
of not loving women. My wife pointed out she was called to love everyone,
including the girls. She said she found the whole sexual labeling thing was
causing confusion especially in the youth whose sexuality is still malleable.
The girls agreed with my wife that they too disagreed with the ideas behind
Pan-sexuality, claiming they wanted monogamy, but wanted to give it a label so
people could identify themselves. My wife pointed out that this was promotion
of these lifestyles not just labeling and this was offensive to her heart. It
was lovingly expression of disagreement, and a legitimate exchange of ideas and
reasons, with my wife defending the Truths of the Church, and listening with
love to these girls ideas.
One girl did ask if she thought they were
going to hell, to which my wife gave the only legitimate Catholic response,
that she could never say anyone is going to hell and “I’m not called to judge
that”. However she could and had a right to disagree with signage that
contradicted Catholic morality, especially at a so called Catholic University.
My wife pointed out that none of the signs promoted Catholic teachings, it
was the girls who suggested that Campus ministry place a sign promoting the
Catholic idea of relationships next to their signs next year.
My wife of course agreed. At the end everyone shook hands and my wife invited
them into the Alumni office anytime they wanted to talk more. The girls express
out loud how much they enjoyed the opportunity to ‘dialogue’ on these subjects
with my wife.
Everyone
thanked the other upon leaving, the girls thanking my wife for her opinions and
“appreciated the dialogue’. My wife agreed.
The husband continued, “My wife was informed
this morning that she is suspended from her job of 15 years pending an
investigation of this ‘incident,’” despite the fact that “no one got her side
of the story.” The employee’s husband also wrote that no one spoke to the
alumni witness who could verify the employee’s account of the conversation.
The employee’s husband provided to
LifeSiteNews the witness’s statement, which described the LMU employee as
non-judgmental. The witness also denied that the LMU employee referred to
one of the students as a “man.”
The witness wrote:
The
student said that she was ‘gay’ and that she knew she was gay at the age of 3
years old. Then the student asked…if she hated gays. [The employee] said,
‘Absolutely not. I don’t hate anyone. My Catholic Faith teaches me to love
everyone. I love you.’ The girl then said, ‘You don’t believe in
transgender then?’ [The LMU employee] said, ‘No, I don’t. There are only males
and females, that’s the truth. You have a female body and all the female parts
as God intended.’ Then the girls got into a discussion that everyone is not the
same in terms of body parts but [the LMU employee] said they still were male
and female and the differences did not change that.
The employee’s husband added:
No-one
from the University talked to my wife before the Loyolan article was
written, or before she was suspended and sent home. My wife, when she read the
article, immediately went to her supervisor to protest the accuracy of the
article. Her supervisor refused to talk to her and simply sent her home to let
HR investigate.
University investigation ‘still
continuing’
In response to the LMU employee’s defense of
Catholic teaching, around 30 students and 20 faculty and staff members
organized a protest the following week “in solidarity with LGBTQ+ members and
other marginalized groups on campus,” The Loyolan reported.
“At this point the investigation is still
continuing,” Celeste Durant, LMU’s Director of Media Relations, told
LifeSiteNews. “It’s a personnel matter, so I can’t comment on it.”
Durant also declined to specifically confirm
that an employee is under investigation, saying she doesn’t have all the facts.
Alexis Dolan, the Senior Administrative
Coordinator of LMU’s philosophy department, wrote a strongly-worded letter to
the editor of The Loyolanadmonishing her
“fellow LMU” employee for her “choice” to “bully, intimidate and condemn”
students.
The employee’s husband told LifeSiteNews that
his wife was allowed to return to work after two weeks of paid suspension and
that the university will likely announce the conclusions of its investigation
this week. It took LMU more than a week to interview the employee about
her side of the story.
LMU employee fights back with anti-Catholic
bias complaint
The couple retained Charles LiMandri and Paul
Jonna as legal counsel. They also may pursue canonical action against the
university.
The BIRT section of LMU’s website lists “Removal
of Authorized LGBTQ+ Awareness Week Signage (Palm Walk)” and “Verbal
Confrontation; University Employee and Students Reposting Signs” as bias
incidents whose investigation is “in process.”
Investigations “in process” mean “BIRT is
currently collaborating with university offices charged with reviewing,
investigating, and resolving a reported incident,” according to LMU’s
website.
The employee’s husband told LifeSiteNews that
their attorneys filed a complaint about anti-Catholicism with BIRT, which read:
My
client…an employee of LMU, has been subjected to Anti-Catholic bigotry by
having her religious beliefs as a devout Catholic repeatedly called
"hateful". She has been made an object of ridicule and scorn for
compassionately expressing the Magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church to
willing LMU students, even though those very same students thanked her and said
they appreciated the constructive dialogue. She has nonetheless been repeatedly
attacked in the LMU newspaper and falsely accused of ‘hate speech’ and even
‘hate crimes’. This is not only false but defamatory and actionable. This also
violates LMU's professed Mission Statement as a Jesuit Catholic University, and
contradicts the recent statements of Pope Francis, a Jesuit, that gender
ideology is inconsistent with our Catholic faith and destructive to the dignity
of the person. There are also signs that have been posted around campus that
promote Anti-Catholic beliefs and activities and that create a hostile work
environment for devout Catholic faculty and staff, in violation of LMU's
nondiscrimination policy and other applicable policies. For practicing her
Catholic faith on the LMU campus, [my client] has been placed on administrative
leave, without explanation or due process, which has caused her great emotional
distress.
This complaint does not appear to be listed on
the BIRT section of LMU’s website.
A form on
LMU’s website allows users to “report discrimination and bias incidents” if
they “feel” they have been discriminated against.
“The university does not tolerate hate crimes
or bias-motivated incidents and will respond to them with appropriate
sanctions, which may include: for students, expultion, suspension, or exclusion
from the campus; for faculty and staff, disciplinary action up to and including
termination,” LMU’s website warns.
“Students, faculty, or staff who experience or witness any form of hate crime
or [sic] bias-motiavted incident should immediately report it to the Department
of Public Safety.”
