Two Michigan State University students filed a lawsuit Thursday against their former professor after she allegedly forced her classes to purchase a yearly subscription to her political advocacy organization that donated the proceeds to Planned Parenthood and other leftist causes.
Alliance Defending Freedom filed the suit on behalf of students Nathan Barbieri and Nolan Radomski against their former business marketing professor, Amy Wisner.
According to the complaint, Wisner required her 600 students to pay an annual $99 membership fee to join her political advocacy group called “The Rebellion Community.” Membership dues were allegedly donated to Planned Parenthood and used to fund Wisner’s personal political advocacy endeavors, including purchasing a “cancel the patriarchy” RV.
Wisner described her “Patriarchy Rebellion Community” in a now-deleted Facebook post last year as “a safe place to coordinate our efforts to burn everything to the f***ing ground.”
The professor also wrote that “100% of membership fees are donated to Planned Parenthood.”
The complaint alleged that Wisner collected approximately “$60,000 each time she taught the class.”
Barbieri and Radomski’s lawsuit accused Wisner of violating students’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to contribute their money to political causes that are “antithetical to [their] deeply held beliefs.”
The two Christian students, who believe abortion is a “homicide of innocent children,” were “aghast to learn that the fees they were compelled to pay as membership fees would be donated to Planned Parenthood,” the lawsuit stated.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, ADF attorney Logan Spena stated, “The Constitution protects everyone, both from being compelled to speak themselves and from being compelled to subsidize the speech of people they don’t want to promote.”
“And this professor was simply using her position as a faculty at a university teaching a required course to require hundreds of students to do just that,” Spena added.
Michigan State University deputy spokesperson Dan Olsen told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The university does not generally comment on pending litigation.”
Wisner started teaching at MSU in 2011, but Olsen noted that she “is not currently employed by the university and the business college reimbursed students for the cost of their subscription.”
The university announced in March that it would reimburse students for the mandated membership fees; however, it did not specify where it planned to get the funds or whether Wisner would be forced to forfeit her profits.
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