Speak No Evil

Or if you’re trans, don’t speak at all. That was what one trans-woman was told when she was invited to come in and speak to the class. Just before Jennifer Braly was schedule to speak, the professor received an email from Dr. Rita Barrett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Department Chair telling her the guest speaker would not be allowed to speak.

Breaking News: Transgender Student Lecture Sparks Debate
Lions’ Chronicle – University of Arkansas Fort Smith eNewspaper
By Joshua Barnhardt and Melanie Stout

Jennifer Braly, a transgender UAFS student, was scheduled to give a guest lecture for Dr. Laura King’s General Psychology class on Friday, April 20th at 9AM. The lecture coincided with the class unit on gender and sexuality. Thursday afternoon, Ms. Braly received an email from Dr. Rita Barrett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Department Chair, which, according to Ms. Braly said,

“All of my faculty are now diligently preparing for the closure of the semester. They must be in compliance with their syllabi, grading, final exams, graduation exercises, etc. and it is impossible to afford more class time to accommodate an additional speaker at one week before finals.Therefore, your scheduled speaking engagements in any course in my department (PSYC, CJ, SOCI, ANTH) have been cancelled. This includes the two scheduled for tomorrow Friday April 20th in Dr. Laura King’s classes.”

Dr. Henry Rinne, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences told the professor that the speaker was not qualified to speak and would be barred from speaking at the university.  The professor was told that she will have to take a survey to determine if there was a need to have a transgender speaker in the future.

In an article in the NWAHomepage by Bobbi Smith reported that,

“Dr. Laura King, the teacher who asked Jennifer to come speak to her class, believes a student complaint led to the lecture being canceled.  "I don't know what complaints would justify her not speaking if there had been complaints."

The articles goes on to say that most of the students met with Ms. Braly in the student lounge to listen to her talk and to ask questions.

I call this the ostrich syndrome, bury your head in the sand and the problem will go away. These are students who are taking a general psychology class and may go on to be psychologist in the future and the university doesn’t want them to learn about Gender Identity Disorder. I think the school is being very negligent in not teaching a topic that their student might have to deal with in their professional life. I believe it may be a violation of the code of ethics of the APA, I know for social workers you have to be “culturally aware” and that means training students in working with clients who are gender variant.