The student who sued her college claiming that her free speech was censored over a classroom discussion on race, Marxism, and other topics told Newsmax on Monday that schools "can ban students from fully engaging" if they have "different views."
Maggie DeJong, a student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, told "National Report" in an interview, "I was in my final semester of my three-year graduate program for art therapy, counseling, and learning to be an art therapist.
"We engaged in classroom discussions in which we discussed current events and contentious issues such as race relations and Marxism and critical race theory, and I respectfully participated with the mindset that this was a marketplace of ideas, not just an echo chamber for one ideology."
She added: "So I was alarmed when I did receive three no-contact orders that were essentially restraining orders. And what they said is that there is no rule or policy that I had violated, but that today I needed to comply with these orders."
DeJong said that she "engaged in discussions which I questioned what we're learning with Marxism and what was being implemented with critical race theories … some topics like that, but was concerning is that they can ban students from fully engaging in their classroom discussions simply for expressing their different views."
According to the settlement reached by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the group Alliance Defending Freedom, the university will pay $80,000, and three professors will undergo training concerning free speech on college campuses.
The university will also revise its student handbook and policies in order to "ensure students with varying political, religious, and ideological views are welcome in the art therapy program."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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