Two law students in Northern Virginia are challenging George Mason University for allegedly violating their First and 14th Amendment rights, after the school ordered them to have no contact with another student who proposed the university offer feminine hygiene products in all restrooms, a suggestion the law students said would compromise their safety and beliefs.
Maria Arcara and Selene Cerankosky, the two students who received the no-contact orders, responded to the Sept. 27 proposal in an online chat group, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the students’ attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization focused on protecting religious rights.
Cerankosky said if women accessed male restrooms, she believed that men would seek to access private female spaces, which would violate her safety and privacy as well as her religious convictions about human sexuality, ADF stated. Acara agreed.
However, the exchange of views led the student, identified in the lawsuit as Mr. Doe, to accuse them of bigotry and report them to the university’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office. Arcara and Cerankosky received no-contact orders prohibiting them from contacting Mr. Doe.
ADF claims that their clients potentially face expulsion from school and scrutiny in their legal careers due to the orders.
Attorneys also claim in the complaint that the school’s policy allows the school to include protected speech as “sexual harassment.”
ADF claims the policy “does not require the DEI Office to determine that sexual harassment occurred, give notice to students before they are disciplined, advise the accused of the allegations, or allow students to appeal ‘supportive measures’—which include no-contact orders—imposed by the DEI Office.”
Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel and director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, said that Arcara and Cerankosky expressed their opinion about the biological differences between men and women, but Mr. Doe’s proposal “blurs those lines at the expense of safety, privacy, and religious conviction. Because of this, their academic and professional careers are now in serious jeopardy.”
Langhofer added that the university’s policy is “far too subjective” and allows university officials to punish students simply because “their opinions about hotly debated social issues don’t align with their own.”
George Mason University President Gregory Washington, Sharnnia Artis, vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer, and Thomas Bluestein, Title IX coordinator and assistant vice president of equity and access services, are named in the lawsuit.
The university acknowledged The Mercury’s request for comment but did not supply a response before press time.
