Thrilling Information of Oregon Thing

If the account of what took place is true I am surprised that readers are not a bit angry, not with the Oregon statutes, but with actions of the administrator. This is not the way bureaucrats ought to behave; however, we know that they often do. At the very least it s seems this woman was embarrassed for no good reason except simply for the sake of embarrassing her - and BJU.

 

As usual, real tolerance is shown by you Carl. You do not agree with them, so they are not welcome to their beliefs, right? Since BJU is wrong they should have to conform to the liberal secular society, and change their positions.

I do not agree with BJU on much, but I have never been around anyone from there that was hateful or a smartass. As far as "the truth", they think, like you, that they know the real truth of life. However, they do not seem to get as upset when others do not accept their beliefs.

Furman University is just a few miles from BJU, so know that the area is not full of "fat southerners ruminating about ideology far beyond their capability to understand". I am pleased to here that you are not interested in moving to the area though.

 

We would spell that "hear" back where I'm from. I rest my case.

 

Right, and I rest mine too!

 

Funny thing. Bob Jones III is thin enough to be a liberal. So he must be really smart, too.

 

Mr. Justice, first thank you for trying to get the thread back on topic.

As I understood the account of what took place is that Mrs. Benton was told that she couldn't use her BJU degree in Oregon. She took Oregon to court and won one dollar. What that means to me is that the court agreed with her that a BJU degree is perfectly valid. However, the court apparently did not agree that the woman was significantly embarrassed nor that any Oregon bureaucrats acted with malice. It definitely means to me that this was not done simply for the sake of embarrassing someone as you assert.

 

I posted the Oregon statute up above. It directs the ODA to warn those using non-accredited degrees in Oregon and makes continued use of those degrees subsequent to the warning illegal.

I'd be very interested to know the basis for her lawsuit, what wrong she believed she had suffered, what legal theories she appealed to, and what relief she was praying for. So far, I don't think that any of us know any of that.

I'll speculate (that's all it is) that the judge in this or some other case ordered the ODA to put in a process for approving degrees from non-accredited out of state schools.

The Oregon statute doesn't seem to address the possibility of 'valid' (whatever that means) non-accredited American schools, and it doesn't include any provision for approving their degrees. But then again it might, if the word 'foreign' in the statute means foreign to Oregon and not foreign to the US.

But the wording of the state law certainly suggests that the state legislature intended their criterion to be accreditation or lack of it, rather than 'validity' or lack of it.

But whatever, the Oregon Rules (as opposed to the Statutes) do include a provision for approving out-of-state schools, and I'm wondering what the legal basis for that elaboration and arguably deviation from state law is. A court decision would explain it very nicely.

But this creates a real problem for Benton's position. When she received her warning letter and responded by suing, provision for Oregon's approving degrees from American out-of-state non-accredited schools either existed or else it didn't.

If legal provision for approval didn't exist at that time, Contreras and his office can't very well be blamed for not offering it. To do so would have violated Oregon state law.

If legal provision for approval did exist at that time, then why in the world didn't Benton and/or BJU avail themselves of it?

It seems that BJU did successfully obtain OR-approval for its degrees at some point subsequent to this case, but I don't know what the connection was, if any.

 

ROTFLMAO!

 

Oh great! And I thought this was one place I could go without hearing the ol' Dick Trac(e)y jokes.

Jack

 

SICLMAO

Sitting in chair laughing my A off.

 

In Mississippi and Louisiana it was "Sherlock" instead of Dick Tracy.

 

We should all write BJU and welcome them to the 20th...ah...21st century!

On the other hand, I don't suppose their intention to seek TRACS accreditation...................

 

I think it is more like they are catching up to the 19th century at this point Jimmy..... you are far too kind!

 

Perhaps, but with de jure and de facto segregation still in practice well into the 20th century............

 

Out here in California, it was 'Sherlock' too.

 

Imagine that, a red state having something in common with a blue state, ha!

 

Yes, we do. Per the linked article:

"The judge ruled that Benton’s constitutional rights had been violated, and he noted, perhaps in response to my testimony, that BJU was a serious academic institution, not a diploma mill._ Because Benton had not demonstrated financial losses, she got the token dollar in damages that is customary in such circumstances."

Hardly an ad hominem. I was merely noting the OP's relish in reporting the whole thing. I certainly did not directly attack him.

 

We don't know what wrongs Ms. Benton said she suffered, we don't know what relief she sought, nor do we know what arguments her attorney used. In particular, we still don't know what constitutional right of Ms. Benton's was supposedly infringed.

Considering that the Oregon laws remain on the books and the ODA continues to enforce them, it appears that the court didn't find either of them unconstitutional.

And despite Erickson's assertion that she won her suit, the 'appellate brief' thing suggests that she was appealing the decision.

I'm also at a loss to understand what relevance there is to the observation that BJU is "a serious academic insitution". So what?

Bob Jones isn't accredited. Nobody disputes that. The Oregon law directs the ODA to send out warnings to individuals using non-accredited degrees in Oregon. Nobody disputes that either. So why is Contreras getting trashed for doing his job?

I was responding to the comment that Contreras has a "bug up his butt" about Bob Jones. I mean, what was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to ignore his responsibility because Bob Jones has a big following in the Southeast or something? What would possibly justify that kind of selective enforcement?

This whole thing is ad-hominem because it attacks Contreras for doing precisely what the law directs him to do. If there is any problem with that, then the law itself should be criticised.

But the claim that Contreras should have disregarded Oregon law because Bob Jones is somehow special, despite it's being defiantly non-accredited, is going to take some fancy rhetoric before it's convincing.

 

My apologies. I did not intend to imply that Mr. Contreras was in any way wrong; I just felt that there was a little information that was missing at the start of the thread. He certainly is doing his job - and I hope he keeps on whatever opposition he faces.

Again, my apologies; He did what he had to do; I perhaps ascribed a certain relish in the threat to fine the plaintiff $25k per mention of her SR"U" quals that was not really reflected in Mr Contreras's actions. It seemed draconian to me. After reading AdvancedU's forums for a half hour or so, I am no longer of this opinion. Mea Culpa, Mr. Contreras!

Ah...that wasn't my claim. I certainly don't think BJU should get any special treatment. There might be some valid questions in the future, however; If BJU continues to improve its academics and still avoids full accreditation, it could strengthen other non-accredited institutions.

 

I'm not a lawyer, but I've read some statutes from time to time. I've noticed several New York State statutes that purported to impose the death peanalty, but which had been declared unconstitutional. Yet, the New York legislature never saw fit to repeal the unconstitutional laws, so they remained in the statute books. (This was in the 1980s; the statutes may be cleaned up by now.)