EAST ST. LOUIS – Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville censored student Maggie DeJong in violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a complaint she filed in district court on May 31.
Her counsel Tyson Langhofer claims the university issued orders prohibiting her contact or indirect communication with three classmates.
“The university issued the orders without giving Ms. DeJong the chance to defend herself and without telling her of the allegations against her,” Langhofer wrote.
He claims the university failed to identify a law, policy or rule she violated.
“That’s because she violated none,” he wrote.
The lawsuit names former chancellor Randall Pembrook, equal opportunity director Jamie Ball, and art therapy program director Megan Robb as defendants.
Robb allegedly encouraged students to report DeJong’s speech to officials, and confirmed by email to all students in the program that DeJong was under investigation for oppressive acts.
University officials copied a campus police lieutenant on each order prohibiting DeJong’s contact with classmates.
DeJong graduated from SIUE in May with a master’s of art therapy.
In an interview on June 3, she said she has started looking for work and preparing for examination by a national certifying group.
She earned a bachelor’s degree at Indiana Wesleyan University.
She said she was very drawn to Edwardsville as it had a well known program.
“I prayed about it and I turned down schools that accepted me,” she said. “The holy spirit prompted me to be here."
She also said the university "fostered an environment where there was a backlash if anyone went against the majority world view.”
Ball issued the no contact orders on Feb. 10.
Each order stated it didn’t indicate violation of policy.
“Rather, it is intended to prevent interactions that could be perceived by either party as unwelcome, retaliatory, intimidating or harassing,” each order stated.
Each order would remain effective for the remainder of the semester.
In filing the lawsuit, DeJong retained Alliance Defending Freedom of Lansdown, Va.
The group’s website calls it the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, marriage, family, and sanctity of life.
The website states the group has won 13 Supreme Court victories since 2011.
It sent a demand letter on Feb. 23, and the university rescinded the no contact orders.
Langhofer alleges in DeJong’s complaint that Robb, her student followers, and even alumni dragged DeJong’s reputation through the mud.
The suit claims DeJong saw in someone else’s project her own words about the gospel of Jesus under a title of “the crushing weight of micro aggression.”
“University officials sacrificed Ms. DeJong’s civil rights to appease the art therapy mob,” the suit claims.
Even after the investigation closed, DeJong censored her speech and limited her movements out of fear that officials would find grounds for discipline, it claims.
The suit sets forth the beliefs the university opposed.
DeJong believes assigning negative attributes to individuals based on race is an unqualified evil.
She believes identifying groups as perpetually privileged and oppressors or as perpetually victimized and oppressed is sinful.
She believes such ideology fosters division and hostility and wrongly assumes that racism requires dismantling social institutions and laws.
She believes such ideology imputes racism to those who do not actively participate in the dismantling of institutions.
She believes counseling must focus on an individual, not on group identity.
The suit claims defendants caused her to suffer anxiety, chest pain, sadness, lack of concentration, and losses of appetite, sleep, and future wages.
It claims defendants acted with malice or with reckless and callous indifference.
Another attorney representing DeJong, Greg Walters, joined her interview and said she expressed views within a broad swath of mainstream ideas.
“Millions of people would agree with her,” Walters said.
“Treating speech as violence is not appropriate. If an innocent person can be treated this way, who is safe?
“It doesn’t end on campus. It will be neighbors.”
DeJong said she knew submitting was safest, “but I couldn’t go against my creator.”
“Our parents taught us to live for Christ but also to die for Christ,” she said.
“Surrendering for the lord is a very honorable thing.”
She let German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer state the heart of her case.
Bonhoeffer broadcast a national radio warning about Hitler on his third day as chancellor but didn’t finish it because the Nazis pulled him off the air.
He died in a prison camp at age 39, two days before its liberation.
He declared and DeJong repeated, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”
She discovered him not at SIUE or Indiana Wesleyan but at home.
“Mom lives Bonhoeffer,” she said.