A student at Santa Clara University was fired from her internship recently after speaking out against progressive “ideological conformity” in the therapy profession, and criticizing the ideological slant of her therapy classes, which included “bondage videos.”
On June 12, graduate student Naomi Best disclosed on X, “I’ve just been let go from my therapy internship following blowing the whistle” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed “on ideological conformity in therapy.” As she noted, she “blew the whistle” on “ideological rigidity in therapy training. A week later, I am fired from my internship….This field is in crisis. The public needs to know.” “This is why I spoke up. And I’m not done. Pray for me.”
Best is a marriage and family therapy major. She wrote a column in the June 6 Wall Street Journal about the “left-wing” ideological and sexual content in her required classes at Santa Clara University, which purports to be Catholic.
“To become a therapist, I’m expected to watch bondage videos and submit a ‘sexual autobiography,’” her column began.
Best’s column added:
Recently, I walked out of class. Prof. Chongzheng Wei had just played a video of a female “influencer” engaging in sexual bondage activity. When the lights came up, the professor smiled and asked if we wanted to try it ourselves. Maybe it was a crass joke to break the tension, but I didn’t want to find out if a live demonstration was next. …
The first time I enrolled in the course, students were assigned to read sadomasochistic erotica and a book called “The Guide to Getting It On,” featuring sexually explicit illustrations. We were told to write an eight- to 10-page “comprehensive sexual autobiography,” which could include early sexual memories, masturbation, current experiences, and future goals with an action plan—all uploaded to a third-party platform for grading. The syllabus allowed that students “are not required to disclose anything that causes extreme discomfort,” but that disclaimer rang hollow attached to an assignment requiring us to discuss such personal matters.
On ethical and religious grounds, I requested an alternative assignment. Cary Watson, the department chairman, denied my request, suggesting I change my plans and pursue a different type of license.
Best reluctantly enrolled in the class again because it is a graduation requirement. But she again requested an alternative assignment as a religious accommodation.
In response, the professor set up a meeting with her where he said the class would be “professional” and “sexual disclosure wouldn’t be required.” But that’s not how things turned out, Best says:
But in the classroom, among other things, he showed a how-to bondage video featuring a submissive wearing a “gimp suit” (a full-body garment designed to restrict movement) and played songs like “WAP” and “I Beat My Meat”—racial slurs included. A guest speaker, a male transgender psychologist, told us “only trans women have p—s that can blow up the world” and described being sexually aroused while looking in the mirror. One exercise included anonymously writing down something we disliked about our genitals or breasts, to be read aloud in class by another student.
After Best reiterated her desire for a religious accommodation, Santa Clara University agreed to make a “one-time exception” for Best: It allowed her to withdraw from the class, if she would “pay out of pocket for a continuing-education course to fulfill licensure requirements, and enroll in an extra three units at Santa Clara to be eligible to graduate.”
But Best said she ran into problems in other courses as well. Other courses Best enrolled in at Santa Clara University told future therapists to “affirm” children who believe they were born the wrong sex, and taught that “objective” thinking is a characteristic of “white culture.”
Best believes such ideological indoctrination will harm people who undergo therapy. “When clinicians are trained to see everything through an ideological lens, rather than with ethical neutrality, the consequences extend far beyond the therapy room,” she observed in the Wall Street Journal.
