From WorldNetDaily, November 2, 2006...

Frank G. Kauffman (Missouri State University)

The "Star Chamber" was a 1983 movie about an organization of powerful judges who decided to take the law into their own hands and dispense justice as they saw fit, within or outside of the boundaries of the existing law.

At Missouri State, the defendants were operating similarly, the lawsuit said. "The Defendants engaged in indoctrination, not education," the lawsuit said. The student was subjected to "leftist diatribes" by a professor, Frank G. Kauffman....

The school's "Star Chamber" for student Emily Brooker involved a two-and-a-half-hour interrogation by faculty members who demanded answers to personal questions such as, "Do you think gays and lesbians are sinners?" and "Do you think I am a sinner?" ...

Brooker was accused of a "Level 3" grievance involving an alleged violation of the School of Social Workers' Standards of Essential Functioning in Social Work Education. The "Level 3" is the highest level of grievance that an individual can face, and university officials told Brooker she violated three of the standards: diversity, interpersonal skills and professional behavior.

The trouble arose from Kauffman's assignment that his students do a project "promoting homosexual foster homes and adoption."

The project required that the entire class write and then individually sign a letter to Missouri state lawmakers supporting the homosexual community's platform plank of adoption "rights."

Brooker refused to sign it. The school also retaliated against her for raising objections and required her to sign a contract that violated her religious beliefs in order for her to graduate, the lawsuit said.

 WorldNetDaily, April 10, 2007...

An independent report on the School of Social Work at Missouri State University says officials there bullied students by creating "an atmosphere where the Code of Ethics is used in order to coerce students into certain belief systems," documenting allegations made by a Christian student who was penalized under the system....

Now the report shows the problems within the university's Social Work Program are worse than anyone expected, and if fact may endanger the future of the program.

Dr. Michael T. Nietzel Missouri State University System President

"I do believe Springfield and the region needs a solid Social Work program; we must decide if Missouri State can provide one. If so, it will be up to the faculty and leadership of the program to offer a plan for building us back to where we need to be," said University President Michael T. Nietzel in a report to his constituents....

He said while a long-term evaluation of the problems and their remedies continues, he is consideration a postponement of an accreditation review, a hold on any tenure decisions in the program, and a freeze on all hiring in the program.

From MSU President Michael T. Nietzel's Reports on Social Work Program...

I regret to report what will be obvious to you as you read the evaluation by the external reviewers: Their evaluation of our Social Work program is extraordinarily negative. In fact, it is as negative a review of an academic program as I have ever seen, and I have been involved in University accreditation activities for more than 20 years as a site visitor for the American Psychological Association, an accreditation consultant, a commissioner of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and a reviewer for the Higher Learning Commission.

As much as I am embarrassed by the report, I have decided it must be made public. The perceived problems in Social Work are too numerous and too serious to hide or diminish. I believe we owe it to ourselves and to our students to let the sun shine on what is very tempting to keep under the rug.

We have begun meetings with the leadership and the faculty of the Social Work program, as well as the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate. I do believe Springfield and the region needs a solid Social Work program; we must decide if Missouri State can provide one. If so, it will be up to the faculty and leadership of the program to offer a plan for building us back to where we need to be. They will be given that chance, but in a fairly short timeframe. I am pleased that Dr. Etta Madden has agreed to remain as the Acting Head of the department for another year.

In the meantime, we are evaluating the steps that should be taken at this time as we plan for what must be a longer term consideration of these issues. Under immediate consideration are 1) a postponement of our external accreditation review, 2) a hold on any tenure decisions for faculty in the program, and 3) a freeze on all hiring in the Social Work Program.

The actual, final report, is gobbledegook and virtually meaningless. It misses the real problems and poses symbolic solutions that will achieve nothing. The Work Site Visit Report is much more illuminating...

Many students and faculty stated a fear of voicing differing opinions from the instructor or colleague. This was particularly true regarding spiritual and religious matters however, students voiced fears about questioning faculty regarding assignments or expectations. In fact "bullying" was used by both students and faculty to characterize specific faculty. It appears that faculty have no history of intellectual discussion/debate. Rather, differing opinions are taken personally and often result in inappropriate discourse....

There is an atmosphere where the Code of Ethics is used in order to coerce students into certain belief systems regarding social work practice and the social work profession. This represents a distorted use of the Social Work Code of Ethics in that the Code of Ethics articulates that social workers should respect the values and beliefs of others....

Tenure and promotion criteria are too vague. There is no clear teaching, research and service markers for tenure or promotion. The vague criteria allows for subjectivity which seems to allow for personal feelings to influence the vote rather than objective criteria....

There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that admission standards in both the MSW and BSW Programs are applied differentially with possible bias against students who are faith based. It also appears that MSW applicants who clearly do not meet admission standards are admitted to satisfy enrollment expectations....

Faculty appeared to have little or no insight into the reasons for the reviewers’ presence. In fact, many faculty clearly felt that this was just one more exercise with outside consultants/reviewers. Faculty stated that "nothing ever resulted from the past consultant/reviewer visits and that they did not expect any consequences to occur as a result of our visit". Faculty do not appear to have an understanding of the seriousness of the issues that occur in the School nor do they have a feeling of commitment to improvement of the School.

Now some very important points...

• Social work by it's nature is based on quite a bit of sociology and psychology.
• Both sociology and psychology, by their very nature, are strongly based in philosophy and world view. Rogerian psychology is based in Humanism. Skinnerian psychology is based on pure materialism. Perls was very much a Libertarian in his world view. Adler attempted to apply Christian principles to his theories.
• It's been noted that Universities almost always have professors that have world views consistent with whoever is running the department, rather than a diversity, which would be more conducive to a well-rounded education.
• Thus we have a war of world views that has reached into almost all aspects of Academe and has erupted, almost violently, in the Social Work Program of MSU, and presumably other universities as well.

To further explain the seriousness of the situation...

The nation is experiencing a crisis (albeit hidden by the MSM) of rampant abuse by Social Workers who use their positions to enforce their personal world view. Let me note here that not all Social Workers do this, but enough do that it is a major problem. To remove a child from his or her parents is to cause abuse. If that child is suffering more abuse in the home, then it's the choice of the lesser of two evils, but the philosophy that pervades Social Service agencies seems to be one that assigns the unquestioned role of benevolent, all-knowing caregiver to the state, and thus through the state's proxies, the Social Workers. Yet as we see from the above chaos at MSU, Social Workers are trained in a setting conducive to corruption, selfishness and cruelty.

To create a word picture, the kind of intervention Social Workers careless use is very much like a surgeon cutting into a patient. If there is a reason to do so, then it is a good thing. But if there is not a valid reason—it is criminal. A doctor hacking away at someone he thinks might have a tumor without first testing for the existence of that tumor, would get the doctor's license revoke, if not prison. We have recourse against doctors that do that, but because of the apparent all-powerful mantra of "It's for the children" Social Workers are able to rip apart families and destroy lives with near impunity.

Organizations like the Home School Legal Defense Association has fought hard to change that. It's good to see that the corrupt university environment that has produced the Social Workers who abuse children is also being addressed, although, one would wish with less meaningless posturing on the part of university muckety-mucks.

Crossposted at JackLewis.net