Two students at Michigan State University have filed a lawsuit against a former professor and two university administrators, claiming they were forced to purchase a $99 subscription to a website that funded the professor's liberal causes.
According to the complaint, filed May 18, Nathan Barbieri and Nolan Radomski enrolled in a business communication course taught by professor Amy Wisner during the spring 2023 semester. As a condition of her class, Wisner required the approximately 600 students to buy a subscription membership to a website called "The Rebellion Community," which is described in the course syllabus as "a global social learning community."
According to court documents, Michigan State University already has an online platform for course materials called "Desire to Learn," or "D2L," which is used by most professors and does not require an additional fee.
The lawsuit claims that Wisner told students she would not benefit financially from the subscriptions when, in fact, she operated the site and indicated the proceeds would be donated to Planned Parenthood or used to fund "an RV road trip around the United States to co-create communities of rebels."
Students then complained to university officials about the situation, and Wisner was removed from the class. Another faculty member was assigned to teach the class for the remainder of the semester and MSU issued $99 credits to students' university accounts, to reimburse them for the money they had paid to "The Rebellion Community."
University spokesman Dan Olsen told MLive the refunds came from Broad College of Business funds and said that Wisner is no longer employed by Michigan State.
The lawsuit explained that Barbieri and Radomski are Christians who are opposed to abortion and "believe that 'rebellion,' when directed against the idea of absolute truth or universal moral norms, is wrong." According to the suit, they also "reject all branches of 'critical theory.'"
"They do not wish to financially support the speech of others that contradicts their views, and they do not wish to become members of groups organized for the purpose of promoting messages that contradict their views," the complaint states.
The students are asking the court to compel Wisner to pay back the money "because she's still out there using these funds to promote ideas that our clients disagree with," said Tyson Langhofer, who serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom. The conservative Christian legal group is representing the students.
The suit also names Judith Whipple, interim dean of the Broad College of Business, and interim Provost Thomas Jeitschko as defendants.
In an April 7 Facebook post, Wisner said, "MSU fired me because they did not want me and my guest lecturers to teach diversity, equity, and inclusion to students in the core business communication class."
"The battle over this issue started in October 2022 and ended about a month ago when they fired me for insubordination," she said.
Wisner also directed people to consider The Rebellion Community "if you are worried about the hateful rhetoric and divisiveness in America, state of our education system, daily threat of gun violence, overt racism, sexism, antisemitism, xenophobia, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of bullying."
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