Maggie DeJong

Can a university bar a student from having any contact with classmates just for respectfully speaking her mind and allowing her faith to guide her values?

Of course not.

But that’s exactly what happened when Maggie DeJong was silenced with no-contact orders from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) after students complained her speech was “harmful.”

Thankfully, instead of succumbing to the pressure, Maggie bravely challenged this unlawful suppression of her freedom of speech, and attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom secured a favorable settlement, including a requirement that three professors at SIUE attend a First Amendment training session conducted by ADF.

University officials also agreed to revise their policies to ensure students have substantive and procedural protections from the weaponization of no-contact orders to silence protected speech so no other student will have to endure the unlawful treatment Maggie experienced.

Get to know Maggie

Helping her dad shovel wet concrete and haul it across a construction site during childhood summers wouldn’t immediately seem like the backstory you’d expect from Maggie DeJong, an art therapy professional.

She didn’t realize it then, but experiences like this would help prepare her for a battle that would test her mettle and require her to carry an emotional load that might have crushed her were it not for her faith.

But as far as she knew at the time, her father was simply helping her train and build endurance to become a successful cross-country athlete.

Along with achievements on the field, Maggie showed early promise as an artist. Her mother, an art teacher herself, encouraged her to develop her skills and even noted her ability and desire to teach others. Maggie’s patience and empathetic spirit allowed her to draw in fellow students who struggled.

God was working on her heart, preparing her to help children who had endured horrific trauma begin the long process of healing.

By the time Maggie applied to the graduate art therapy counseling program at SIUE, she was so convinced that she was where she belonged that when her application was rejected, she took a gap year and applied again the following fall. 

Maggie chose art therapy because she has a passion to preserve the innocence of children—especially those who are survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Art therapy is a way for children to help calm their thoughts as they process heavy, traumatic wounds.

Indoctrination leads to censorship

As Maggie advanced into her second year in the three-year program, it became clear that the school promoted critical race theory and concepts that Maggie believed undermined human flourishing. So, she started respectfully asking questions and sharing her own thoughts in class, and actively engaged in conversation with fellow students outside the classroom.

Instead of responding through respectful discourse, her professors and classmates began to ostracize Maggie.

One of the most painful moments she experienced was when a classmate, whom Maggie had considered a friend, took the private text message she’d sent her and used it in an art display titled “The Crushing Weight of Microaggressions.”

What exactly did the text say that Maggie sent and was used as an example of a “microaggression”? “[M]y personal held beliefs are grounded in objective truth by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Though Maggie was dismayed that her words would be maligned in this way, she continued to love all her classmates. To this day, she will tell you that if she had a chance to take one of these fellow students to coffee, she’d want them to know how much she cares for them and wants to be able to share different ideas in respect and love.

In her classes, however, professors increasingly fostered a painful environment in which Maggie’s fellow students tore into her beliefs and twisted her ideas to mean things she wasn’t saying. Her parents saw the effects.

“She was an emotional wreck a number of times,” her mother says. “Thank God she had a strong faith. But physically and emotionally, it was taking its toll on her. It was hard to watch.”

Increasingly isolated from everyone else in the program, Maggie began to lose sleep, appetite, and weight. She felt chest pains and found it harder and harder to concentrate. And she began to realize that the same professors who were abetting the attacks on her words and ideas would soon be the ones determining her ability to find employment as an art therapist after graduation—if they allowed her to graduate at all.

The university refused to protect Maggie’s fundamental rights and instead responded by piling on more punishment for simply voicing her opinion.

Maggie received no-contact orders from SIUE officials which prohibited her from having any contact with three fellow art therapy students—not only on campus, but off campus as well.

These orders meant that if Maggie came into a coffee shop where one of the students was studying, Maggie would have to leave.

And copied on the email to Maggie? Campus police.

When Maggie asked school administrators what she had done, they didn’t identify a single law, policy, or rule that she had violated.

But the university made clear that she faced “disciplinary consequences” if she violated the orders.

That’s right: without citing any actual violation, the university censored Maggie because three students complained they were uncomfortable with her beliefs.

In effect, Maggie’s speech and even her physical movements were being censored—all because some of her fellow students and professors disliked her point of view.

But Maggie was undaunted. She was particularly inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who challenged the Nazis and paid for it with his life. She remembered his sobering warning that “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Maggie’s victory for free speech

Maggie faced a level of persecution that even Alliance Defending Freedom’s most experienced campus attorneys have scarcely observed.

Upon hearing her story, ADF attorneys sent the university a demand letter asking that it rescind these no-contact orders that were “infringing upon Ms. DeJong’s ability to fully participate in her educational experience and exercise her First Amendment rights.”

Eighteen days after issuing the orders, the university finally rescinded them. It took another 10 days for school officials to even disclose the materials they used to launch the investigation and issue the orders.

Beyond the immediate threat to Maggie, ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the Center for Academic Freedom, notes that inevitably, students will start censoring themselves, because “what’s happened to Maggie can happen to literally anybody. You don’t need to go looking for trouble on a college campus for it to find you.” People assume, he says, that if a school issues a no-contact order, the student must have done something to provoke such a response. “And today, that’s just not true.”

It was clear that Maggie’s free speech rights were violated, so she turned to ADF to stand with her as she challenged these accusations.

SIUE tried to have Maggie’s lawsuit thrown out, but a federal district court allowed the case to proceed. The court ruled that Maggie “clearly has the right, as enshrined in the First Amendment, to express her religious, political, and social views on her personal social media account and to engage in mutual conversations with fellow students regarding those opinions without fear of retaliation from school officials.”

After fourteen months of litigation, ADF attorneys secured a favorable settlement on her behalf. As part of the agreement, SIUE revised its policies and paid damages and attorneys’ fees of $80,000, and some professors participated in First Amendment training to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

Bottom line: Universities cannot discipline students for their political and religious views—especially without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves.

Maggie uses her gifts to serve

Maggie’s courageous stand for freedom was a trying time for her, yet the Lord was preparing her for an opportunity to use her gifts. Upon graduating in May 2022, she began to work with young girls who are struggling through the complex trauma of having been the victims of sex trafficking. She sees that art therapy provides a unique way for these girls to begin to express something that often can’t be expressed with words alone.

“It’s a ferociously gentle approach. The best way to describe it is like the Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel, with God touching the finger of Adam. I get to watch these girls just be so impacted by the Holy Spirit … and to be an advocate for those who have been wronged in the most heinous crimes that a child can be wronged in. I get a front-row seat to what God’s doing.”

Maggie’s story is only possible because everyday people are willing to stand with her and provide the resources to allow her to challenge an unlawful university action. Her victory is a win for every American. Will you step up now and partner with our Ministry Friends to provide critical support for the many clients like Maggie? They are putting so much on the line for freedom, and you can help make a difference for them right now—advancing freedom one victory at a time.

Will you give to support free speech cases like Maggie’s and help defend students like her?