TPC Journal-Vol 10- Issue 1

The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 1 115 with a gay couple. She has never had to do so at her full-time job. In Tennessee, there is a law that allows a licensed professional counselor to refuse to provide services to anyone based upon “strongly held personal beliefs.” Carolyn tells her supervisor that she declines to work with Dominic and his husband and requests that the client be reassigned. The site supervisor suspends Carolyn and contacts her university supervisor in California. Given Carolyn’s enrollment in an online counselor education program located in another state, this raises a number of questions when considering next steps. For example: 1. Which law or guideline is the primary guide for Carolyn’s conduct as a practicum student at the addictions center? 2. What relevance is there to the fact that Carolyn is already a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee but only a student at the university in California? 3. What if any implications will there be if Carolyn similarly refuses to see a client who is gay at her full-time job? 4. Is Carolyn bound by the ACA Code of Ethics if she is not a member of the American Counseling Association? These questions illustrate some of the complex terrain to be navigated by online counselor educators. Other Legal Considerations Ward v. Wilbanks (2010), though not the first case of its kind and certainly not the last, garnered significant attention in the profession through the focus on a student-driven lawsuit against a counseling program at Eastern Michigan University and the individual faculty members. The plaintiff, Julea Ward, was enrolled in a practicum course and providing counseling services under supervision at the in-house clinic at Eastern Michigan University. She was assigned a client who presented with depression and issues related to a same-sex relationship. Ms. Ward sought to refer the client, citing a conflict with her personal religious beliefs, and she was expelled from the program, which she cited as a violation of her rights. A lower court recognized the importance of the right of educational programs to self-regulate. However, a higher court found in favor of Ms. Ward, and the Ward v. Wilbanks case became critical in the further evolution of the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), through which clarification came in terms of referrals that are rooted in competency and referrals that are rooted in the imposition of values and judgment. Thus, in the prior case study, Carolyn could be allowed to refer in an educational program and in her state, but may not be allowed to refer under the same circumstances outside of her state. Because most states follow the ACA Code of Ethics , anyone functioning as a counselor could be held to those standards regardless of ACA membership status (Sheperis et al., 2016). Discussion The aforementioned examples serve to underscore the complications that arise just by virtue of the differences among the laws and regulations on like issues from state to state. With students being trained in the same program but living in different states and being trained by faculty who are also living in different states, opportunities for legal and ethical challenges abound. As counselor educators, we are trained to develop competent, ethical clinicians to serve clients, yet modern-day training, especially across state lines, requires the educator be informed of legal, ethical, and other challenges impacting the profession and students they serve.