Students Sue Professor After Being Forced to Donate to Planned Parenthood

One student’s faith propelled him to take action and “expose the bad things that happen and not just sit back.”

QUICK FACTS:
  • Michigan State University students Nathan Barbieri and Nolan Radomski are suing business marketing professor Amy Wisner after she allegedly forced her students to donate to a cause benefiting Planned Parenthood.
  • “My money is in the hands of Planned Parenthood,” Barbieri told Fox News Digital.
  • “For me, as a Christian, it’s our calling. We’re supposed to expose the bad things that happen and not just sit back and… be abused. That’s our job,” Barbieri said.
  • The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) claims the professor pressured her 600 students to pay $99 for membership in “The Rebellion Community,” an organization created by the professor.
  • Membership fees are donated to Planned Parenthood.
  • “I hold true to my Christian beliefs,” Barbieri stated. “[My faith] really pushed me to get out there and do something about it, because I knew if I didn’t, you know, and if nobody else did, what stops this from happening again and again.”
  • The other student involved in the lawsuit, Nolon Radomski, said the lawsuit is “a matter of free speech.”
  • ADF counsel explained that what Professor Wisner did “was completely out of the ordinary. She basically fabricated a requirement, put it on the syllabus to join this website, which had nothing to do with the course, and she could have used the free platform that the university provides, which every other professor uses.”
  • The professor is no longer employed at Michigan State University.
FROM THE LAWSUIT:
  • The lawsuit states: “Plaintiffs bring this Complaint for compensatory and punitive damages and declaratory and injunctive relief in order to halt Defendant Wisner’s ongoing use of their funds to advance messages they disagree with and correct the University’s policies that, as applied, permit faculty to force Plaintiffs to finance and associate with external advocacy organizations as a condition of course enrollment at the University.”
  • The filing details the plaintiffs’ discovery of a Facebook post from their professor reading, “The Rebellion community is a safe place to coordinate our efforts to burn everything to the [expletive] ground.”
  • “The Rebellion Community” also donates to “organizations fighting systemic oppression,” according to the filing.
  • Two causes of action are presented in the case, both regarding the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
  • “Forced association that affects in a significant way the ability of one person to advocate public or private viewpoints is unconstitutional unless it satisfies strict scrutiny,” the lawsuit asserts.
BACKGROUND:
  • Instead of presenting students with professors holding to woke ideologies or violating Constitutional rights, Southern Wesleyan University President Bill Barker stated the college will not hire those who support critical race theory.
  • “I made it very clear where SWU stands on critical race theory, and we made it very clear in our hiring processes,” he said.
  • Barker continued, “We’re not hiring people – and I’ve been clear since I came here and the Board of Trustees has supported this – who endorse critical race theory. We will have the courage to let faculty or staff go if they are teaching critical race theory.”

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