Volume VII, Issue 3

SPEECH IMPEDIMENTS

How one student’s classroom ordeal became an inspiration for other Christian students

F&J Magazine: 8.5" x 11", 20 pgs (16 + 4pg cover). Prints 4cp +aqueous coating

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Alliance Defending Freedom | 3

M i n u t e s W i t h A l a n

No matter where I am, I sleep very little the night before a major decision comes down from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding one of our Alliance De-fending Freedom cases.

Those nights, all my years of studying history come back to me. I feel like one of General Eisenhow-er’s soldiers, on the deck of a troop ship approaching Normandy, wondering what awaits us on the murky beach ahead.

Wherever I am, I’m up early—usually before 4 a.m.—in contact with our allies and attorneys and straining for every bit of news I can find on what’s happening, what the ruling says, what its implica-tions are for other cases and clients. If I’m home, I’m usually sitting at a table in some quiet corner of the nearest Chick-fil-A, their first customer of the morn-ing, clicking away on my phone or ipad. If I’m on the road, I’m probably juggling cell phone conversations with boarding announcements in a crowded airport waiting area.

I was in the Detroit airport in June when the joyful word came that our Allied Attorneys had won their case against those enforcing Gospel-free “buffer zones” around abortion centers. Christians were now free to share the truth of God’s love and the sanctity of life with those considering killing the baby in their womb.

A few days later, the night before the Cones-toga / Hobby Lobby decision, I hardly slept at all …

praying and praying, and absorbed with thoughts of the clients in those cases, our dear friends the Hahns and the Greens, and all that was at stake for them in this decision. I thought of the legal abuse they’ve had to endure for their kindness to their employees, and for their determination—in the face of enormous pressures—to preserve the lives of countless children from chemical execution.

Frankly, I get more emotional about these things now than I used to. I think so often of the Huguenins, the owners of a New Mexico photography business whose rights-of-conscience case was denied by the high court earlier this year. I ache at what it costs God’s children, sometimes, to stand for their Father. I don’t worry about a loss embarrassing our ministry, or doubt, even with a bad decision, that our Lord’s purpose will ultimately be accomplished. But realiz-ing what losing may cost these who’ve trusted their cases to us drives me to my knees again and again, seeking God’s justice and mercy in their lives.

Sometimes, I pray quietly, in my heart. Some-times, I find a solitude where I can let the emotions pour forth. And always, I take comfort in knowing that I am not praying alone.

John 15:5–Apart from Christ, we can do nothing.

Watch a special message from Alan. Visit www.Alliance DefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice.”

Waiting And Prayingby Alan Sears, President, CEO and General Counsel

Volume VII, Issue 3 CONTENTS

8 SPEECH IMPEDIMENTS“I felt like it was my responsibility to

speak up for those that didn’t speak up that day—including myself.”

—Jonathan Lopez—

4 HOW AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR BECAME A VOICE FOR FAITH“I really began to see the absurdity of the

relativistic worldview, and it lit a fire in me.”

6 BRINGING LEGAL TRAINING TO LIFE“I don’t know of anybody offering

anything remotely like this.”

14 CHANGING THEIR TUNE“Apparently, it was easier to change our program

than to challenge the ACLU.”

16 ALLIANCE PROFILE: EMMANUEL OGEBE“When no one else was standing with us for the persecuted

… that was when ADF came into the picture.”

C o v e r S t o r y :

Alliance Defending Freedom would enjoy hearing your comments on the stories and issues discussed in Faith & Justice. Please direct comments/questions to www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org, call 800-835-5233, or write: Editor, Faith & Justice, Alliance Defending Freedom, 15100 N. 90th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260.©2014, Alliance Defending Freedom. All rights reserved.

@AllianceDefends www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.orgAlliance Defending Freedom Editor Chuck Bolte

Senior Writer Chris Potts

Design Director/Photography Bruce Ellefson

Contributors David Cortman, Phillip Dean, Chris Potts, Alan Sears

Alliance Defending Freedom15100 N. 90th Street

Scottsdale, AZ 85260

[Phone] 800-835-5233

[Fax] 480-444-0025

Jonathan Lopez found few supporters when he challenged an abusive professor on his college campus.

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What led you to begin questioning your earlier, more leftist attitudes and beliefs?

In 1996, I was down in Ecuador, doing a teaching ex-

change, and I had an opportunity to go to one of their

prisons. It completely changed my perspective on things.

[It] started to impact me, in terms of the way I looked

at things. The prisoners were fed very badly, beaten, and

denied attorneys. I heard stories about how they would

[electrically] shock confessions out of people, and actually

shoot people. Three hours after walking into the prison,

I walked out, and the first thing I saw was a statue of

the Virgin Mary, up on a hill above the prison. I actually

spoke to the statue, and just said, “I was wrong.” It was a

grasping of the moral law—and a recognition that there is

an absolute moral authority. Cultural relativism doesn’t

make sense. Certain things are just universally wrong.

I really began to see the absurdity of the relativistic

worldview, and it lit a fire in me. It took a few years before

I actually converted to Christianity and had the political

conversion, (but) it became very clear that I wasn’t just

moving away from the worldview that they loved in my

department … I was actually specifically beginning to em-

brace labels that they hated. That’s around the time that

the real trouble started.

4 | Alliance Defending Freedom

O n T h e S q u a r e

with

D r . M i k e A d a m s

Q &A

How An Atheist Professor Became A Voice For Faith What was the tipping point in your becoming a Christian?

Late in 1999, I had an opportunity to sit down and ac-

tually have an interview with a guy on death row—a men-

tally challenged guy—and he tried to quote John 3:16, and

he mangled it a little. I asked him if he’d read the Bible, and

he said he had. And I was a little bit ashamed, because I was

a tenured professor, and I hadn’t. So I decided to get a copy

and read it. And I spent about nine months reading the King

James Bible. I picked up some various Christian apologet-

ics, such as Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and How Now

Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson. (My mother had done some

work in Prison Fellowship with him). Absolute best year of

my life. I became convinced Christianity was true, and at

the end of that journey, I joined a church.

People often say, “You’ve got to love them back to the

Lord.” Well, some people need to be argued back, and that

was my experience. I just didn’t believe it was true, and

wanted to be convinced. I was really impacted by that inter-

view, and it took me a long time to just consider the merits

of the faith.

What impact do you see your recent legal win having on Christians at other universities?

(Note: In April, after seven years of litigation, a court

ordered UNCW to promote Dr. Adams to full professor and

pay him thousands in back pay. In addition, in July, UNCW

adopted procedures

protecting him from

renewed retaliation,

and paid his attor-

neys’ fees.)

First of all, it

shows that profes-

sors can speak out

on issues of public

concern, and integrate that within their work as profes-

sors, and not be punished for their viewpoint. But also, it

shows that a conservative can stand up and fight—with

ADF—and that there is a chance. David can face Goliath

and prevail.

If all of the people who are conservative and Christian

at public universities were to stand up simultaneously and

say, “Yeah, me, too—I’ve had bad experiences—he’s not the

only one who believes this way,” they couldn’t target us

anymore. So that’s the goal: that people will look at the

occasional positive case and decide that they’re going to

come forward, and that our numbers will grow.

What gives you hope, as you wade back into the struggle for academic freedom each day?

It’s a dangerous question, because if we sit here and

say, “Well, what is it going to take to win?”—we might get

discouraged. I think it was Reagan who used to say that

tyranny is always a generation away. We have to realize that

the battle to defeat tyranny actually never ends.

Once you realize that, you can say, “Okay, I’m no lon-

ger focused on winning and stamping out evil forever. I’m

interested in the next battle. And maybe I’ll influence other

people to join in something that is good and edifying and

intrinsically meaningful.” That is an awesome thing to be a

part of, and so I’d ask people to be careful about looking all

the way to the goal post. Just always be moving in a forward

direction. It’s intrinsically joyful—it really is.

What impact do you see ADF having on the struggle for religious and academic freedom?

I’m very optimistic about what ADF is going to be

able to accomplish. ADF has been doing great things for a

long time, but I think their best days are in the very near

future.

Alliance Defending Freedom | 5

Conservative columnist Mike Adams is a native of Missis-

sippi, holds a Ph.D. from Mississippi State, and has served on

the faculty at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington

(UNCW) since 1993, teaching criminal justice. An atheist and

a leftist when he joined the faculty, Adams’ religious and po-

litical beliefs shifted significantly over the next decade, even

as he won multiple awards for outstanding teaching, earned

tenure, and was promoted to associate professor.

His changing convictions, though, brought him into in-

creasing conflict with administrators and fellow profes-

sors, and they eventually denied Dr. Adams a well-earned

promotion to the rank of full professor. With the help of

Alliance Defending Freedom, he filed a successful suit

against UNCW to defend his First Amendment right to

freely express his beliefs.

Go to www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice” to watch

an interview with Dr. Adams, and to learn more of what ADF is doing to protect

the religious freedom of Christians on America’s college campuses.

Dr. Adams discusses his recent federal court victory with ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis C. Barham.

I really began to see the absurdity of the relativistic worldview, and it lit a fire in me.

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Does art imitate life, the old debate asks—or does life imitate art? It’s getting hard to tell, for those directing advanced training at Alliance De-fending Freedom.

The training is offered to Allied Attorneys—lawyers not employed on the ADF litigation team, but who share the ministry’s priorities and cooperate with it in defending cases across the country—as a highly specialized, tightly focused variation on the usual ongoing legal training required of all who prac-tice law.

“Non-lawyers don’t always appreciate how specialized law is,” says Jo-

seph Infranco, senior counsel and vice president of Alliance Coordination.

“One of the difficulties we find with some of our most pressing cases is that

lawyers are not comfortable if they don’t have a background in that particular

area of the law. They might see a case, they might have the heart to help, but

they just don’t have the expertise—and that’s more of a disincentive than we

might realize.

“With advanced training,” he says, “we look at areas of the legal landscape

that are sensitive, that require quick intervention, that are kind of technical for

various reasons. We’re looking to get these attorneys trained by experts in those

fields, so that they’ll be as capable as anybody in their state on these matters,

and able to jump into cases related to that area with no reluctance.”

In the last two years, ADF has offered advanced training related to rights of

conscience, religious speech in the public square, and denial of medical care. It

was that last subject—and the real-life experience that came hard on the heels

of the training provided—that led the ADF team and Allied Attorneys to a new

understanding of how crucial this kind of specialized training can be.

6 | Alliance Defending Freedom

S p e c i a l F e a t u r e

Bringing Legal Training To Life

Alliance Defending Freedom | 7

Several years ago, ADF attorneys were

called in to intervene in the case of Jesse

Ramirez, a seriously injured auto acci-

dent victim whose treating physicians

had cut off his food, water, and medicine.

Acting on behalf of Jesse’s sister, who

wouldn’t give up on him, ADF went to

court to get Ramirez the sustenance and

medical attention he needed to live. After

months of proper medical treatment and

physical therapy, he walked out of the

rehabilitation center

on his own.

The ADF le-

gal training team

drew heavily on

that experience in

preparing a sample

case for Allied At-

torneys participat-

ing in advanced

training related

to denial of medi-

cal care. Those in-

volved in the train-

ing were divided

into teams of two,

presented with a

realistic legal sce-

nario, and required

to do research, draft affidavits, inter-

view experts, cross-examine witnesses,

file briefs, and argue their case before

a judge (with most of these parts en-

acted by ADF team members).

All that hands-on activity is a far

cry from the long hours of listening

to lectures that characterize most ad-

vanced legal training programs … and

it seems to distinguish the training of-

fered by ADF from that of almost any

other ministry in the country.

“I don’t know of anybody offering

anything remotely like this,” Infranco

says. “We require participation. We

simulated all the stress of a real-life

hearing—this was a true representa-

tion of what these attorneys are going

to face.” For a lawyer, he says, the dis-

tinction between this kind of training

and the usual lecture hall fare is “the

difference between a medical school

student hearing a lecture on anatomy,

and performing actual surgical pro-

cedures under the guidance of senior

doctors. It takes legal training to a

whole new level.”

“It was the best and most fruit-

ful (advanced) training that I‘ve ever

received,” says Greg Terra, who, with

fellow attorney Stephen Casey, heads

Texas Center for Defense of Life

(TCDL) in Austin, Texas. “Just a lot

of good, helpful information in a

very short amount of time. And very

hands-on—just the best bang for the

buck I’ve ever seen, as far as legal

training goes.”

Terra and Casey quickly had rea-

son to draw on what they’d learned

in the training. Less than a month af-

ter the ADF session, they were asked

to represent a comatose man whose

estranged wife wanted to remove his

feeding tube—a situation eerily like

the scenario they had taken part in

only weeks before. Based on that re-

cent training, the two men took the

high-profile case.

“If it wasn’t for ADF, we wouldn’t

have had any training in this,” Terra

says. “But we were ready to handle it.

We had a good overview of what to do

and what we need-

ed to think about. It

was like we’d han-

dled one before.” In

the months since,

TCDL has taken on

other, similar cases.

“The resources

of ADF are amaz-

ing, and empower-

ing,” says Randy

Wenger, chief coun-

sel of the Indepen-

dence Law Cen-

ter in Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania, who

attended the same

advanced training

session. “There’s

somebody with ADF who’s an expert

in any subject I want to deal with. The

brightest and the best people are em-

ployed there, and they’re looking for

ways to empower me.”

“It’s a shared base of experi-

ence—a shared pool of information,”

Infranco says. “Any ally who comes

to advanced training gets the benefit

of a special relationship with us. That

ally can call ADF attorneys for what-

ever kinds of training, support, or fi-

nancial assistance he or she may need

in taking on these kinds of special-

ized cases.” By offering that kind of

help, he says, “we’re raising the qual-

ity of legal representation throughout

the alliance.”

Paul Yang, a live event producer for ADF, helped synchronize the activities of the mock trial.

Stephen Casey of Texas Center for Defense of Life makes his case in a mock trial during ADF Advanced Legal Training, supported by (l – r) Dorinda Bordlee of Louisiana’s Bioethics Defense Fund, and Rebekah Millard of Oregon’s Life Legal Foundation.

If it wasn’t for ADF, we wouldn’t have had any training in this.

— Greg Terra

There’s somebody with ADF who’s an expert in any subject I want to deal with. – Randy Wenger

Visit www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org

and click on “Faith & Justice” to learn more about the ADF legal alliance and the advanced

training this ministry provides.

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8 | Alliance Defending Freedom8 | Alliance Defending Freedom

Speech Impediments

Curiously, in polls of people’s worst fears, public speaking con-sistently makes the top 10. Curi-ously, because unlike most other major phobias (flying, falling, spiders, snakes) this one involves no threat of physical harm. It springs, apparently, from the same deep-down insecurities that make us balk at trying something new, or blanch at the sound of our voice on a recording.

We don’t want to be embar-rassed. We don’t want to look or sound foolish … by saying some-thing stupid, or saying something valid in a vacuous way.

Despite—or perhaps, be-cause of—the fear, college stu-dents across America sign up by the hundreds of thousands every semester for speech courses.

They take their turns at the lec-ture hall podiums, knowing every oration is a chance to overcome that unnerving insecurity … and unlock that poise and skill of communication that we all dream is within us.

Of course, every speech is also a chance for the mortifying nightmare to come true. That’s why so much depends on the speech instructor, and his ability to coach and coax students out of their shells and fears and into a measure of confidence, even elo-quence.

For a while, working his way through a speech class at Los An-geles City College (LACC), Jona-than Lopez was convinced he had a particularly good instructor. The man was witty, inspiring, full of

— b y C h r i s P o t t s —

HOW ONE STUDENT’S CLASSROOM ORDEAL BECAME AN INSPIRATION FOR OTHER CHRISTIAN STUDENTS

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practical advice. Then came the day Jonathan gave the speech that meant the most to him of anything he’d pre-pared all semester—and he found not only that his teacher had a dark side … but that he had Jonathan by the throat.

That fall, Jonathan was 21 and work-ing hard at finishing the requirements for a general education degree at LACC. He was also growing in a newfound faith, having become a Christian just a year earlier, the last in his family to make that life-changing decision.

“I didn’t grow up in a Christian household,” he says. But, one by one, over time, his mother, sister, and then brother came to faith. “I was the hard-headed one. My mom prayed for me for years—years. I didn’t want to have any-thing to do with church, anything to do with God.”

Still, he went to church, and to camp each year with the youth group, “to get my mom off my back.” And, to his considerable annoyance, God, like his mother, nagged at Jonathan’s heart.

“I would just feel God speak to me, you know? Tugging on me. I was so hard-headed. Actually, my head was

clear—my heart was hard.” One year, at camp, a friend offered to pray with him, to ask Christ into his heart. “I wouldn’t hear it,” Jonathan says.

A year later, back at camp, the “tugging” had grown even stronger. “I prayed and told Jesus that if someone would offer to pray with me again, this time I would do it. I asked Him to send someone to ask me. He did—the same friend from a year before. This time, I prayed with him.”

He laughs, remembering some-thing his mother often said: “The harder the conversion, the more it will ‘take.’” Jonathan’s took. Worship and the truths of the Bible began to take on growing importance in his life, and increasingly informed his view of the culture around him.

That culture was changing dramati-cally as he took up his studies at LACC in the fall of 2008. Marriage, in par-ticular, was much in the headlines, as Californians prepared for an electoral showdown on Proposition 8, a voter ini-tiative to amend the state constitution to define marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman.

In November, the amendment passed, and the vote was a topic of con-

siderable discussion on the LACC cam-pus. For students in Jonathan’s speech class, the nature of that conversation changed on the morning after the elec-tion, when their instructor, John Mat-teson, walked in, slammed his papers down on his desk, and announced that anyone in the room who had voted for Proposition 8 was “a fascist bastard.”

“He was so mad, he dismissed class,” Jonathan says. Like the other students, he was stunned by Matteson’s words and manner. “Up to that point, when he came in that day, I could hon-estly say he was a good instructor. I enjoyed the way he taught, his sense of humor.” With Matteson’s help, Jonathan had begun to “feel a lot more confident giving speeches.”

Confident enough that he decided his next talk would address the subject of Matteson’s outburst.

The assignment was simple and straightforward: an informative speech, six to eight minutes long, mostly mem-orized, on any subject. “No criteria, no restrictions, nothing,” Jonathan re-members. “He said, ‘It’s open, whatever you want.’”

10 | Alliance Defending Freedom

Two thoughts went into Jonathan’s choice of subject. First, his newfound faith.

“What better to inform people about than God, right?” he says. Knowing he would be graded down for any effort to turn an “informative” speech into a “per-suasive” one, Jonathan carefully crafted his speech to describe his own experi-ences, not advocate his views. “I wasn’t saying this is the way. I wasn’t trying to tell people to come to church with me. I wanted to keep it simple.”

He resolved just to tell the class of his salvation experience, and share Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” But he also wanted to address, indirectly, Matte-son’s derogatory comment about those in the class—including Jonathan—who had voted “yes” on Proposition 8.

“I decided to put the definition of marriage from the dictionary into my speech. I felt like it was my responsi-bility to speak up for those that didn’t speak up that day—including myself.”

Jonathan’s turn came a few weeks af-ter Professor Matteson’s fit. He was ready for anything except what happened.

Jonathan devoted the first half of his speech to telling how God had im-pacted his life; Matteson, apparently, “didn’t have a problem with that.” But when Jonathan began reading the dic-tionary definition of marriage—the legal union of a man and a woman—things quickly changed.

“He started mumbling, in the back of the room,” Jonathan says. As Mat-teson’s murmuring continued, growing louder and louder, “I actually asked him if he would mind lowering his voice, be-cause he was being disrespectful—this was my time to speak.”

At that, the professor exploded. Loudly repeating the epithet of a few weeks before, he denounced Jonathan and announced that his speech was over. Confused, Jonathan reminded him that he still had half of his time left to go.

“No!” Matteson shouted. He an-nounced that anyone who’d been of-

fended by the speech was free to leave. No one moved. Some students, in fact, asked to hear the rest of what Jona-than had to say. “Don’t listen to him,” they said. “Just keep going.” Matteson, though, would have none of it.

“This speech is over!” he repeat-ed. “Class dismissed!” Two or three students bolted for the door. The rest milled out slowly, several of them of-fering encouraging words to Jonathan, who moved toward the back of the room to get his evaluation sheet from Matteson. The instructor handed it to him, facedown. Jonathan turned it over as he walked toward the door.

“Ask God what your grade is,” Mat-teson had written.

“Hey, don’t put your head down,”

a friend said, seeing Jonathan’s dejec-tion. “You did good.” In fact, he says, he received “a lot of positive feedback.” Outside of class, many students ap-proached him who had also voted “yes” on Proposition 8. “A lot of them were offended” by Professor Matteson’s re-marks, Jonathan says, “but they didn’t do anything about it. So when I gave my speech and then the incident occurred, a lot of them actually came to me and

told me that it took a lot of courage to do what I did, and that they were grate-ful that I did it.”

Jonathan knew, too, that a few stu-dents were offended—though none of them said anything to him personally.

“Sometimes, when people disagree with you—especially if you have a really strong opinion about something—you just feel offended. One or two students, maybe, were offended, because of the definition of marriage. Sometimes the truth offends people—but just because it may offend somebody doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to say it.

“I knew it was something I was sup-posed to do,” Jonathan says. “When (Matteson) dismissed class and can-celled—pretty much censored—my

speech, I had a little doubt, thinking to myself, ‘Did I do the right thing? Did I go about it the right way?’ But that was very minimal. I felt that what I did had to be done, and for the most part, I felt that was the way it needed to be done.”

Unfortunately, Professor Matteson was not a man to let bygones be bygones. Not long after Jonathan’s speech, he

Alliance Defending Freedom | 11

“I wasn’t trying to get at tention. I just needed to

speak up for my faith.”– JONATHAN LOPEZ –

“Ask God what your grade is.”

– JOHN MAT TESON –

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12 | Alliance Defending Freedom

and another student arrived late for class. Not realizing someone was speak-ing, they slipped in the door, interrupt-ing a speech. Jonathan apologized to the class, but Matteson immediately singled him out for ridicule and re-proach. Being so rude, the instructor said, “was not very Christian of you.” Jonathan said nothing.

“It was hard,” he says. “Really hard.” Things didn’t get any easier, in the days that followed, as Matteson continued to deride Jonathan before the other stu-dents at every opportunity.

“He would always have remarks in class,” Jonathan says. “It was like he made it his mission to the end of the semester to keep attacking me. I didn’t know whether I should keep going to

class or not, because I didn’t want to go through that embarrassment any more. I wanted to just avoid another confronta-tion. But if I didn’t go, I would get an in-complete, so all that hard work—all those speeches that I had done already—would have been for nothing. I had to finish.”

Jonathan decided to tell the col-lege dean what was happening. To his surprise, she didn’t seem especially concerned, suggesting only that he document his complaint with some sig-natures from other students. She made no offer to investigate his assertions or confront Matteson herself.

Even worse, the dean’s office was directly across the hall from Professor

Matteson’s classroom. Matteson saw the two talking and shortly afterward con-fronted Jonathan in the hallway.

“He got in my face,” Jonathan says. “I thought he was going to put his hands on me. He said he was going to make it his mission to expel me from school.”

For Jonathan, that was the final provocation. When a friend contacted Alliance Defending Freedom on his be-half, and told him they might be able to offer legal help, Jonathan made the call. Although he dreaded the thought of a lawsuit, “Something needs to be done,” he decided. “Instructors can’t just do things like this. It’s not right.”

After conferring with his family, and considerable prayer, “I decided to go that road.”

ADF connected Jonathan with David Hacker, senior legal counsel and direc-tor of the ministry’s University Project, created to defend the legal rights and religious freedom of Christian students all over America. David sent demand letters to LACC, detailing what had been happening in Professor Matteson’s class and urging administrators to cor-rect the problem.

“In the letter the dean sent back to us,” David says, “she said that other students had been offended by what Jonathan said regarding marriage, and by his Christian beliefs. She wasn’t say-

ing that what the professor did was wrong.” In effect, he says, she was “jus-tifying the professor’s actions” while ignoring Jonathan’s constitutional right to free speech.

ADF filed a federal lawsuit against the college, its administrators, and Professor Matteson, asking the court to put a stop to the instructor’s behav-ior, and address the college’s uncon-stitutional speech code that facilitated that behavior.

“The college actually had a policy that said, ‘If you believe what you are going to say is going to be offensive to someone, don’t say it,’” David says. “So the college was already telling students to self-censor their speech, and that’s what caused this whole incident.

“Policies like this are on the books on college campuses all across the coun-try,” David says, “and just the fact that they are on the books, and in student handbooks, chills student speech. Stu-dents read, ‘If you think you’re going to say something offensive, don’t say it,’ and then they self-censor their speech. They don’t share their ideas. They don’t feel free to do so.”

ADF asked the federal court to block LACC from enforcing its speech policy, and the court did. The college appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Ap-peals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that the connection between the speech policy and what happened to Jonathan wasn’t sufficiently clear to justify com-pelling the college to change its speech code. ADF asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision, but the high court declined.

That wasn’t the end of the case, though. ADF went back to the district court, asking it to rule in Jonathan’s favor and compel Professor Matteson to stop his outrageous behavior in the classroom—and the court did just that. It entered a judgment against Matteson for abusing his student’s free speech rights, and awarded Jonathan damages for the violation of those rights.

“I was pleased with that,” Jonathan says, “even though it was never about the money. It was more about defend-ing my faith. I was really glad that there was acknowledgement that the instruc-tor did do wrong, that he did violate

Alliance Defending Freedom | 13

my rights … and that other believers can speak up now, and feel comfortable about speaking up.”

“Jonathan’s case had far-reaching effects,” David says. “It was covered in the national media, (and) a lot of people paid attention because the facts were so egregious. Certainly oth-er schools noticed the inherent wrong in a professor singling out a student just because of his faith, and punish-ing him.” The incident and ensuing lawsuit also caught the attention of other college students nationwide, many of whom contacted ADF with their own experiences of persecution for their faith and denial of their con-stitutionally protected speech and re-ligious freedom.

“We’re able to tell Jonathan’s story to those students,” David says, “and how he stood up boldly to protect his religious liberty and defend his faith, and those students have been encour-

aged and are more willing to stand up for their rights.”

Despite all the attention his case received, though, Jonathan studiously avoided the limelight, refusing all re-quests for interviews, from the school newspaper to national cable news outlets.

“I didn’t want my face out there,” he says, “because it wasn’t about me. I wasn’t trying to get attention or any-thing like that. I just needed to speak up for my faith.

“Everyone has the right to say, ‘I don’t believe in God,’ so why don’t I have the right to say, ‘I believe in God?’ I felt that this is something God put in me to do, and I did it for Him. I knew in my heart that it had nothing to do with me.”

The semester of his confrontations with Jonathan was Professor Matte-son’s last on the LACC campus. Wheth-er he was dismissed or left of his own accord, Jonathan doesn’t know. He

does know that, in the end, the college gave him credit for the speech course he endured to the end. His final grade was an “A.”

Early in 2014—six years after the in-cident—Jonathan’s sister told him she’d seen a movie about what happened to him, and that Jonathan’s name was in the closing credits. The film, God’s Not Dead, was based on several cases involv-ing Alliance Defending Freedom, includ-ing the one at LACC. Eventually, Jona-than saw the movie himself.

“It kind of brought back feelings,” he says … long-buried emotions from the moments he faced a professor’s an-ger and abuse. But it also reminded him why he spoke up in the first place, and what the long years of the court case were all about. “It was very, very reward-ing,” he says. “The first time I actually felt proud of myself.”

In other words, for that speech, Jonathan Lopez doesn’t have to ask God what his grade is.

See an inspiring video of Jonathan Lopez’s story by visiting

AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and clicking on “Faith & Justice.” You can also learn

more about the film God’s Not Dead.“I felt like it was my responsibility to speak up for those that didn’t

speak up that day—

including myself.”– JONATHAN LOPE Z –

Jonathan Lopez shares a lighter moment with his attorney, ADF Senior Counsel David Hacker,

director of the ministry’s University Project.

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14 | Alliance Defending Freedom

The decision really came out of the blue. We’d been practicing Christ-mas carols for a month, when one day I walked into class and the band director announced, “We have to pick out new music—the principal

says we can’t play religious songs.”The whole band was upset about that, for two reasons. One, we’d

just put in weeks of practice on these songs, and nobody wanted to start over, learning new music from scratch. And, second, the director had let us pick out the songs—so it was our own music choices that were being rejected.

Some of us were curious why our principal would suddenly make such a decision, so we walked to his office and asked him. He seemed surprised to see us—maybe he didn’t think it would be that big a deal to the students. He told us he was responding to a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and that they’d threatened to sue the school if we performed any religious music. Appar-ently, it was easier to change our program than challenge the ACLU.

At home that night, I talked about what had happened with

CHANGING THEIR TUNE

by Phillip Dean

M y V i e w

my parents. They’ve always taught me that it’s important to stand up for what I believe in, no matter what the issue might be. Not that I need a lot of encouragement in that … espe-cially when it comes to my religious beliefs. So an issue like this … well, I was just determined to get to the bottom of it.

I went online, researching laws about freedom of speech and religion. But it was my dad who found Alliance De-fending Freedom, and sent them an email. He and my mom had told me that if I wanted to try to get the re-ligious songs back on the program,

they were behind me 100 percent.We heard back quickly from an

ADF attorney, Rory Gray. He’d done his homework, too, and now quick-ly sent a letter to the school, ex-plaining that the Constitution pro-tects our right to perform religious music. He sent me a copy of that letter, and suggested that I present it at the upcoming meeting of the school board.

That turned out to be one of the most nerve-racking things I’ve ever done. I typed out what I wanted to say, and practiced reading it. I’d never actually been to a school board meet-ing before. It turned out there were only a few people there—including my dad, a school friend speaking on the same thing I was, and her mom. After I read my statement and gave the board the letter from ADF, they

just said, “Thank you for sharing,” and that was it. They didn’t have a full quorum of the board that night, so they postponed the vote to the next meeting.

In the meantime, I posted what was happening on Facebook, and a neighbor suggested maybe I should call our local paper, too. The reporter I spoke with asked a lot of questions, and began looking into things her-self. Other folks were posting things, too, for and against what I and some others were doing. Some said we should just go along with what the principal said and not argue. Others had the same questions I did.

With so many talking about what had happened, I decided to visit the principal again, just to be sure I’d understood everything right the first time. In fact, his story had changed. He hadn’t actually received a letter from the ACLU, he said now. He’d just read a press release they’d is-

sued a few years before.That was definitely different

from what he’d told me before, and I shared that with our attorney and the reporter. They both wondered why he hadn’t just told me the truth the first time. But by then, it was time for the second school board meeting. This time, they would be voting.

There were a few more people at this second meeting—word had gotten around. After I spoke again, briefly, about why I felt this issue

was so important, several parents in the room stood to say they agreed with me. The board talked it over, and voted—unanimously—to rein-state the religious music. People gave a little cheer, and we all shook hands. It was pretty exciting.

And I was really thankful to ADF for stepping in and helping us. I don’t think we could have persuaded the board by ourselves.

Next day, I told our band direc-tor what had happened, and he an-nounced that our band would be performing the religious medley after all. The rest of the band was pretty happy about that (though, to be honest, a lot of them were just as excited not to have to keep learning

new music).We had a great turnout for the

concert. True, nobody really said much about what had happened with the principal—but I knew, and I was kind of proud of myself. Not because of what I had done—but because I had been obedient to God’s call to stand up for Him.

Alliance Defending Freedom | 15

Phillip Dean at his school concert last December.

Music has always been especially

important to Phillip Dean. Gifted as a

singer and musician, the high school

sophomore leads a Wednesday night

youth band at his Rock Hill, South

Carolina church. And, though he

completes his academic coursework

online from home, he played for the

last four years in the band of nearby

York Preparatory Academy, a pub-

lic charter school. Like many in the

band, he was looking forward last

Christmas to playing the holiday con-

cert, which was scheduled to feature,

for the first time in memory, a med-

ley of carols with religious themes.

Apparently, it was easier to change our program than to challenge the ACLU.

Visit www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org

and click on “Faith & Justice” to learn more about this ministry’s efforts nationwide to preserve the religious freedom of students

in our nation’s public schools.

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16 | Alliance Defending Freedom

A l l i a n c e P r o f i l e

Emmanuel Ogebe Nigerian Attorney

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme

Court affirmed that two fam-

ily-run businesses, Conestoga

Wood Specialties and Hobby

Lobby Stores, do not have to

surrender their religious free-

dom in order to remain in busi-

ness. The court determined

that federal law protects the

two families from being forced

to act contrary to their beliefs

by the Obama Administration’s

abortion pill mandate.

The Department of Health

and Human Services mandate

forces employers, regardless

of their religious or moral con-

victions, to provide insurance

coverage for abortion-inducing

drugs, sterilization, and contra-

ception or face heavy financial

penalties from the Internal Rev-

enue Service. But in Conestoga

Wood Specialties v. Burwell and

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores,

the Supreme Court said the

families running the two busi-

nesses have federally protected

religious freedoms that the

government must respect. (As

of August, 2014, ADF is now

20-0 in decisions on lawsuits

filed against the mandate.)

Alliance Defending Freedom | 17

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law creating a 35-foot anti-speech zone around abortion facilities. ADF Allied Attorney Michael DePrimo success-fully argued that the zone’s uncon-stitutional effect was to block advo-cates for life from quietly conversing with women on their way into these buildings to have an abortion. (The law imposed up to two-and-a-half years in jail for its violation.)

The court ruled that those who would lovingly invite women to choose life face-to-face are legally entitled to do so, up until the moment a woman enters the abortion facility’s property.

The high court’s decision affirms that “The government cannot muz-zle speech just because abortionists want to silence it,” says ADF Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.

This crucial ruling is already hav-ing a domino effect on other cases. On July 23, after the decision, ADF at-torneys and allies in New Hampshire secured a court order blocking the creation of 25-foot censorship zones designed to keep anyone from speak-ing, standing, or entering public side-walks outside abortion facilities. On August 5, after another ADF lawsuit, the city of Madison, Wisconsin voted to rescind a law that had created hundreds of 200-foot “bubble zones” around any entrance in the city that might be used by professionals offer-ing medical services.

This year has been the most

successful ever for Alliance De-

fending Freedom attorneys and

allies defending religious speech

on college campuses. Across

the last two decades, ADF has

achieved over 200 legal victo-

ries, including more than 40 this

year alone.

In the past fiscal year, ADF

attorneys filed 10 new lawsuits

to protect public university stu-

dents against unconstitutional

policies and private universities

against the Obama Administra-

tion’s abortion pill mandate.

In North Carolina, ADF lawyers

won a critical decision in a

major faculty free-speech case

(see On The Square, p.4), and in

Virginia, they secured a court

ruling that dismantled unconsti-

tutional speech restrictions at

23 community colleges through-

out the state. ADF is also con-

tinuing its nationwide effort to

contact universities and colleges

that enforce unconstitutional

policies.

Continuing to contact schools

nationwide that enforce uncon-

stitutional policies, ADF has

written letters to more than 400

schools, resulting in changes

that could potentially impact

nearly five million students in

more than 25 states.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON AMERICA’S CAMPUSES

AN ENEMY OF THE STATE Vol. VII, Iss. 2

U p d a t e s

HIGH COURT AFFIRMS

PRO-LIFE SPEECH

I n T h e N e w s

Visit www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice” to see a compelling conversation with Emmanuel Ogebe and learn how ADF is working around the world to defend religious freedom.

Emmanuel Ogebe likes to describe his na-tive Nigeria as “the America of Africa.” Nige-ria has the largest population of any country on that continent (equal to more than half that of the U.S.), its people divided between a mostly Muslim North and a mostly Chris-tian South. In recent years, Muslim extrem-ists—like the notorious Boko Haram, whose attacks include the kidnapping of 300 school-girls earlier this year—have been moving to

exterminate Christians in the North.“You have revival going on in the South,”

Ogebe says, “an explosion of churches. But in the North you have this horrendous persecu-tion, the largest killing of Christians anywhere in the world.” This year, more Christians were murdered in northern Nigeria—about 350 a month—than in the rest of the world com-bined. Under Boko Haram, entire states have eradicated virtually all Christians and church-es; areas that once had thousands of pastors

now have only a few dozen.What is happening is essentially “ethnic

cleansing,” Ogebe says, “except this time, it’s ‘religious cleansing.’ This is an evil unlike anything that we’ve seen in recent times. The world needs to rise and stand against this and crush this.” He and other Nigerian leaders are looking to U.S. Christians for help. Alliance Defending Freedom has financially supported Ogebe’s work, which produced an in-depth report on Boko Haram that led the U.S. State Department to declare it a terrorist group, freezing the group’s international assets, and posting warrants for its leaders.

Nigeria’s president has also called for constitutional reform; ADF is working to help Ogebe and other Christian attorneys secure protections for religious freedom throughout the country. Recalling how, as a young man, he was tortured and imprisoned by government officials, Ogebe now expresses endless grati-tude for all ADF is doing to bring justice and freedom to his nation.

“When no one else was standing with us for the persecuted,” he says, “when my heart was overwhelmed, I prayed for God to ‘lead me to the rock that is higher than I am,’ and that was when ADF came into the picture.”

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Several years ago, public outcry over blood diamonds—those mined in war-torn countries and sold to finance the activities of brutal war-lords was everywhere. Women were returning jewelry that was not certi-fied as “conflict-free.” It even became a cause du jour in Hollywood, culmi-nating with an award-winning film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

What if the U.S. government mandated that all diamonds come from a country notorious for its trade in blood diamonds? All engage-ment rings, anniversary earrings, and Mother’s Day necklaces could only contain diamonds mined in the suspect country. Many jewelry retail-ers believe that using such diamonds is immoral, and have adopted poli-cies to ensure that such gems are not sold in their stores. Should they be forced to comply with this mandate? Should they be forced to violate their sincerely held belief that selling dia-monds that might have caused the suffering and death of innocent peo-ple is a grave wrong?

This is exactly what the Obama Administration’s abortion pill man-date, which requires family business-es to pay for items that they believe can cause abortions, imposed upon both Hobby Lobby and our client, Conestoga Wood Specialties—a small Pennsylvania-based cabinet manufac-turer owned by a devout Christian Mennonite family. On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled against this mandate.

To socially conscious family busi-nesses like Conestoga, it is a grave moral wrong to deliberately termi-

nate a human life, no matter how long it has been since that life was conceived. These families have courageously taken a stand for the sanctity of every human life, even though it means openly defying the demands of the government.

This should have been an easy case. Among the fundamental rights our Founding Fathers enumerated is the right not to be coerced into do-ing something that violates one’s sincerely held religious beliefs. If a person (or the family business he operates) can be forced to trans-gress those beliefs, then the guaran-tee of free exercise of religion is not worth the paper on which it is writ-ten. Any law or government policy that furthers such coercion is funda-mentally unjust.

But in this debate over the legal-ity of the mandate, the Left has cre-ated and exalted a “right” to employ-er-provided abortifacients—a right James Madison must have missed when drafting the Bill of Rights. This “right” demands that my employer, whom I probably knew was religious when I applied for my job, must pay for pills that can terminate a hu-man life. Apparently, it is too much of a burden to expect a person who wants these pills—which cost less than a couple of large pizzas—to pay for them.

Imagine me walking into my lo-cal jewelry store, proclaiming that I have a “right” to purchase blood diamonds because it is just too ex-pensive to pay for those conflict-free certified diamonds. Under the Left’s concept of freedom, my right to that low-cost engagement ring trumps the

jewelry store’s deeply held moral op-position to the gems.

And this “right” to employer-provided abortifacients is enforced by none other than the Internal Rev-enue Service—the same government agency that’s been under investiga-tion by Congress for targeting so-cially conservative organizations and losing potentially incriminating e-mails. For a family business like Conestoga, the potential IRS penal-ties for not complying with the man-date—$100 per employee per day—are devastating.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to recognize this new “right” to abortifacients. Instead, it recog-nized that no one, whether sitting at his own kitchen table or behind the desk at his company office, should be forced to violate his deeply held beliefs in this manner.

This is a victory for everyone, even those who desire access to abor-tion pills. After all, if the government can force Conestoga Wood Special-ties and Hobby Lobby to pay for mor-ally objectionable items, then tomor-row it can force you to violate your most cherished beliefs.

Preventing that harm is what freedom of religion is all about.

David Cortman is senior counsel and

vice president of litigation for Alli-

ance Defending Freedom. This piece

originally appeared in USA Today.

Opposite page photos—Top: A blood

diamond from Sierra Leone. Bottom:

Mifepristone, or RU-486 … an abor-

tion pill.

David Cortman

18 | Alliance Defending Freedom

O p i n i o n

The Abortion Mandate: A Hard Pill To Swallow

Alliance Defending Freedom | 19

20976-Mag.indd 18-19 10/21/14 2:50 PM

Pass on a legacy of freedom. Please contact Lisa Reschetnikow at 800-835-5233 or LisaR@AllianceDefendingFreedom.org to discuss your legacy giving.

TODAY’S PLAN

TOMORROW’S PROMISE

“We firmly believe the Lord is uniquely using ADF as a sword and a shield for Christians around the world ... both for today and tomorrow. They are a vital ministry

and critical legal resource that we dare not fail to support.” —Dave & Suzanne M.

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