Current Affairs

Student who said non-binary people don’t exist says First Amendment rights were ‘violated’ after being kicked out of class

Mar 15 2018
Written by Meka Beresford

(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

A student has claimed that his First Amendment rights were “violated” after he was kicked out of a class for making claims about trans and women rights.

Lake Ingle was taking a Christianity class at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

In the class, professor Alison Downie showed a TED talk in which Paula Stone Williams, an ex-pastor who is transgender, held a discussion on mansplaining, sexism and male privilege.

After she showed the clip, professor Downie started a conversation.

She asked the women in the class to share their opinions.

However, Ingle barged into the debate to share his views which got him kicked out of the class.

The senior religious studies major accused his professor of pushing a “far left doctrine” on the class.

He then said that the gender wage gap was “a debunked myth” and claimed that non-binary people don’t exist.

He was kicked out of the class immediately and referred to the Academic Integrity Board at the university.

The board have said that Ingle’s comments were “angry outbursts in response to being required to listen to a trans speaker discuss the reality of white male privilege and sexism”.

They also said he held “disrespectful objection”, “refusal to stop talking out of turn” and “disrespectful references to the validity of trans identity and experience”.

Ingle has now been banned from the class by IIUP Provost Timothy Moreland.

He needs to finish the class to graduate.

Talking to Fox News, Ingle claimed that his First Amendment rights were violated because he was kicked out of the class.

“You can’t say that anecdotal evidence is fact. My professor pretty much just tried to shut me up because she was just letting women speak.

“I brought up the fact that biologists don’t agree that there’s more than two genders and I said the wage gap she’s referring to – 77 cents on the dollar – that even the New York Times debunked that.

“My professor is violating my First Amendment rights because of the fact that my views and ideology is different from hers.

“So she took it on herself to silence and embarrass me – bully me – for speaking up in class,” he said.

Ingle added that he has the “firmest belief that every human being has the freedom and right to identify, dress, and represent oneself as they see fit.”

But, he insisted: “I think this is all an attempt to silence my views personally because they contradict the ones she pushes in class so evidently.”