Covenant College Censors Gay Rights Work from Former Student's Alumni Update

Kathryn Brightbill, an alumna of Covenant College, a Christian liberal arts college in Georgia, recently sent in an update to the school's alumni newspaper because she was proud of some of the recent professional work she had accomplished, assisting on research for an amicus brief in the Prop. 8 and DOMA cases.

 

Writes Brightbill: 

And so, I filled out the alumni update form to say that I’m a student at UF Law and was asked to work on the Family Equality Council, et al. brief in Perry and Windsor, and that as part of that I coauthored the LGBTQ Youth and Young Adult Survey as a joint project between the University of Florida Center on Children and Families and the Emory Child Rights Project. All very professional and academic. There was no intent to make a political statement. It wasn’t a protest against Covenant or the PCA’s position on homosexuality in general or marriage equality in particular. It was just a nice, generic alumni update about what I’ve been up to recently.

So what did the school publish?

Kathryn Brightbill '03 is currently studying law at the University of Florida Law School.

Adds Brightbill:

The only part of my update that Covenant published was my name and the fact that I’m a student at UF. The rest of the update, the professional accomplishments that prompted the decision to send an update in the first place? Gone. Erased. Unacknowledged.

Covenant tells me that they won’t run it because they won’t print anything that’s counter to the position of the college. Apparently doing so would “celebrate” something they disagree with. The disclaimer in the masthead that the contents of the View may not necessarily reflect the views of the college isn’t enough. Neither was my suggestion that they print a disclaimer before the updates specifically stating that updates were for informational purposes only and did not imply endorsement by the school.