Public trust in America’s colleges and universities has reached a historic low – and two recent stories of professors pushing sexual perversion in the classroom under the guise of legitimate academic instruction are unlikely to reverse that trend.
In one of the more shocking accounts to emerge from academia in recent months, Santa Clara University graduate student Naomi Epps Best recently blew the whistle on several disturbing experiences at the Jesuit Catholic school in California. This spring semester, Best said she walked out of a required class after Professor Chongzheng Wei showed a “sexual bondage activity” video to students.
“When the lights came up, the professor smiled and asked if we wanted to try it ourselves,” Best, a marriage and family therapy student, wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Maybe it was a crass joke to break the tension, but I didn’t want to find out if a live demonstration was next.”
Best had reason to be worried. The first time she took this class, “students were assigned to read sadomasochistic erotica and a book called ‘The Guide to Getting It On,’ featuring sexually explicit illustrations.” The prior instructor also required students to write a “comprehensive sexual autobiography,” including past experiences and “future goals with an action plan.”
Santa Clara refused to let Best out of the class, so she had to enroll again. The content was so explicit that she felt uncomfortable even sharing it during an appeal to campus ministry – where she had to discuss the issue with a priest.
Wei, the new instructor, promised accommodations for students who were uncomfortable or had religious objections to the material, but did not deliver. Best and other students were required to watch bondage videos and “anonymously [write] down something we disliked about our genitals or breasts, to be read aloud in class by another student.”
Despite being made aware of the grotesque violations of privacy and inappropriate mandatory disclosures of personal sexual history taking place in classrooms, university administrators allowed it to continue. Best wrote that a staff psychologist she spoke to at Santa Clara said the department “has a history of demanding intimate self-disclosure from students—a practice he regards as unethical.”
However, instead of removing the professors or revising the course, the school ignored all her requests for accommodations and even denied her version of the story. The university also brazenly defended the course to its own Board of Fellows, claiming it fulfills a state requirement.
In addition to requiring women like Best to endure lectures from male professors who show pornographic videos, the program appears to not even teach students the basics of marriage and family therapy.
Westchase Law, a firm specializing in divorce, says polls show parenting decisions, money, and relationships with other family members are the most common sources of marital discord. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) paper also found that “infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use,” were often the “final straw” before a divorce.
But instead of teaching students about conflict resolution, anger management, or financial decision making, Santa Clara teaches students about niche sexual topics in an intensely personal manner.
The problem is not limited to Santa Clara University, however. An instructor from Mesa Community College in Arizona is also under investigation following two years of accusations that he showed pornography in class and encouraged female students to strip while their peers watched.
The academic cover for this assignment was to teach students how “to face fear,” according to the Arizona Republic. Not surprisingly, given the perverse teaching methods of the instructor, he also faces accusations of inappropriately touching students.
Best believes that the problem stems from rigid ideological conformity in the counseling and therapy profession. Seemingly confirming that assessment, Best’s internship fired her soon after publication of her Journal story.
“This will harm clients,” she said. While the therapy field talks about “diversity” and “tolerance,” it does not tolerate people who are opposed to sadomasochism or showing porn in the classroom. This is a “crisis in therapy,” Best warns.
“The entire field of educating therapy has been hollowed out and filled in with critical theory,” Best wrote. “Therapists are no longer trained to be neutral; they’re trained to be agents of political change.”
In fact, Wei, the one who showed the bondage video in Best’s class, is clear that he supports critical theory, a philosophical approach described by some as “cultural Marxism.” Wei, according to his university bio, “aims to address health disparities affecting sexual and gender minority populations with multiple marginalized identities and/or living in developing countries.”
He ostensibly does so “by understanding the intersectional nature of discrimination/oppression and designing culturally affirming interventions.” Apparently, those “interventions” include forcing students to share intimate details about themselves and encouraging them to engage in fringe sexual activities.
But in true leftist fashion, Wei has a set of standards for people who agree with him and a different set for people with whom he disagrees. He had no problem using his position of authority to coerce students into watching graphic sexual videos, but he was not “culturally affirming” of the views of Best and others who support monogamy and are opposed to watching porn.
Naomi Best’s story is not just a disturbing glimpse into the rot inside academia — it’s a warning about where the therapy profession is headed if this ideological extremism is allowed to continue unchallenged.
But by refusing to stay silent, Best has exposed how activist professors are abusing their authority to push fringe sexual content on unwilling students, all while administrators look the other way or retaliate against those who object.
Her courage should serve as a rallying cry for anyone concerned about the future of mental health, academic integrity, and the basic rights of students. Real reform won’t come from inside these broken institutions. It will come from brave whistleblowers like Best, and from a public willing to stand with them.
Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
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