Two Christian students at Michigan State University are suing a former professor, alleging that she forced them and hundreds of other students to pay a $99 membership fee to her own left-wing activist group as part of the course requirements.
In a complaint (pdf) filed last week in a federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, second-year business students Nathan Barbieri and Nolan Randomski said they enrolled in a required business communication course taught by Amy Wisner this spring.
Wisner, who described herself as “a single mom by choice, speaker, author, rebel professor, and social justice warrior” on a mission to “cancel the Patriarchy,” required that each of her roughly 600 students pay $99 to sign up for an online group called “The Rebellion Community.”
“This is a global social learning community with a private space dedicated to this course,” a syllabus of the course read. “You will engage with live and recorded content and connect with peers, alumni, and others for dialogue about important business issues.”
“Your membership fees are used to (1) pay for use of the technology and (2) pay guest speakers, educators, and facilitators,” it added. “Your professor does not receive any financial compensation from your membership fees as that would be a conflict of interest.”
However, according to Barbieri and Randomski, Wisner could have just uploaded the course material to the university’s online platform, “Desire to Learn,” which provides all services related to the class and allows all students to use it without having to pay an extra fee.
The two students, represented by conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, also said they soon discovered that Wisner was the creator and controller of The Rebellion Community and its website and that she had said in different contexts that the money would be used to support left-wing causes, including abortion provider Planned Parenthood.
“The Rebellion community is a safe place to coordinate our efforts to burn everything to the [explicit] ground. 100 percent of membership fees are donated to Planned Parenthood,” the professor wrote in a Facebook post.
By Bill Pan
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