Texas professors sue to fail students who seek abortions

[Nevilledog]

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/03/texas-professors-to-fail-students-seek-abortions/

A pair of Texas professors figured out that their female students have sex and, boy, they do not like it. So now the philosophy professor and finance professor are suing for the right to punish their students who, outside of class, have abortions.

"Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not 'health care,'" University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of "voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse," students should not be allowed time off to get abortions. If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students. Additionally, Bonevac asserts that he has a right to refuse to employ a teaching assistant who has had an abortion, calling such women "criminals."

The sexual hang-ups of abortion opponents are rarely far from the surface, but even by those low standards, the unjustified male grievance on display in this new Texas lawsuit is a doozy. At issue are federal regulations, called Title IX, first signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972. They currently bar publicly funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex or gender. This means that schools cannot penalize students for health care based on sex. As a male student would be granted leave if he had to travel for surgery, so must a female student, the federal statute requires. The two men argue that granting students an excused absence in such cases violates their First Amendment rights.

Even though the plaintiffs suing for the right to flunk female students for abortion include boilerplate arguments in which they feign concern that abortion is "killing," the legal filing makes it clear that what really outrages Bonevac and Hatfield is that Title IX prevents them from controlling the private lives of students. Along with their anger about abortion, they grouse about not being allowed to punish students "for being homosexual or transgender." They also argue they should be able to penalize teaching assistants for "cross-dressing," by which they appear to mean allowing trans women to wear skirts.

*snip*

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Does class attendance have a bearing on class grades or passing a class?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Depends on the prof/institution.

[underpants]

2. HIPAA anyone?

They missed class. No matter the reason it’s no big whoop. It’s THEIR money. They aren’t being paid to be there.

More importantly it’s their body and it’s none of these assholes business.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. People overshare and tattle all the time.

[bif]

3. Like we need another reason to hate Texas.

[Torchlight]

6. I wonder if the profs apply this to smoking-related cancer,

or a broken leg due to simply driving to work, as both examples could be arguably (exactly as the profs are doing) traced back to initial decision (e.g., I chose to take my first puff, I chose to drive to work), or if they'll just hold to the pointed bigotry of their suit as is.

Idle wonders on my party - I've got a pretty good guess as to the actual answers they'd give.

[jimfields33]

9. Wonder too.

[Irish_Dem]

7. How does faculty know a student has had an abortion?

Unless they have proof, it is just a rumor.

[RussBLib]

8. They should be fired

...no way their profession should allow them to punish students for things they've done away from school, especially for health reasons.

Firing and public humiliation are called for here.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

[struggle4progress]

10. "Instead of evaluating my students based on their academic performance, I have decided

to award grades based on what I can learn about the kids by stalking them"

[Celerity]

11. this is insane