Whistleblower Fired for Exposing Blasphemous Sexual Perversions at Jesuit University

Counseling establishment hits back at graduate student who protested sadomasochistic erotica

A graduate student has been expelled from her internship program at a Jesuit university after she exposed it for requiring counseling students to consume sadomasochistic pornography and submit a “sexual autobiography” -- a violation of the American Psychological Association’s ethics code.

In a heartfelt video shared on X last Friday, 26-year-old Naomi Epps Best expressed her distress over being fired from her internship as part of the counseling program at Santa Clara University, an institution that trumpets its commitment to the Catholic Church. She is training to be a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT).

“Moments ago, I was fired from my therapy internship for blowing the whistle in The Wall Street Journal on ideological conformity and therapy training,” Best said, fighting back tears. “This comes with the regret of my boss, but he was left no choice due to the climate we are now in. I don’t know what’s next for me. It could get worse. This comes at great personal cost.

“I am not doing this for personal gain,” she added. “I am doing this because if we don’t have a set of therapists with diverse worldviews and with tolerance for people with diverse worldviews, we will alienate people who need psychological care and we will cause more harm than good.

“This will harm clients. This is not a partisan issue. This needs to be brought to the public attention. It is a crisis in therapy.”

Clinical Psychologists Rally in Best’s Support

In just a few hours, Best’s post had attracted over a million views. Clinical psychologists and students who had experienced similar ideological coercion in the field rallied to support her, commending her for exposing the sexual perversions at Santa Clara University.

“As the owner of a large private practice, I am exceptionally impressed with your courage. Yes, our field is in crisis, for myriad reasons,” Dr. Dathan Paterno tweeted back to Best. He said he could offer Best an internship in his private practice.

Charles Negy, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida who has faced persecution from Leftists at his school, told Best: “I’ve been a professor for 31 years. It’s not just a crisis in therapy. It’s ALL across higher education. U.S. universities no longer are ‘truth-seekers’ but indoctrination centers for future activists.”

Best’s expulsion came a week after The Wall Street Journal published her expose on June 6, as The Stream previously reported. In it, she detailed how she was forced to walk out of a class after Prof. Chongzheng Wei “played a video of a female ‘influencer’ engaging in sexual bondage activity.” The influencer was “shown gagged, flogged, and wrapped in plastic,” she added.

Elaborating on her experiences in a series of Substack essays, Best noted that in her program, “practices like BDSM, kink, polyamory, and swinging were presented as inherently valid and equally healthy to monogamous marriages with the aim of successful child rearing.”

While the university granted some female Muslim students exemptions from the class, Best’s request, based on religious, ethical, and trauma-informed grounds, was denied.

Best also reported that the school was violating the American Psychological Association’s ethics code by demanding as a graduation requirement the “compulsory submission” of an 8-to 10-page “comprehensive sexual autobiography” from each student taking a Human Sexuality class.

“This autobiography’s guidelines include details about one’s masturbation history, sexual experiences past and present, sexual preferences, and sexual aspirations for the future, just to name a few topics,” Best complained to university Provost James M. Glaser and Vice-Provost Toby McChesney.

“Further, while I was enrolled in the course with Professor Bindu Khurana-Brown, we were prompted to reveal personal sexual information in small co-ed groups. As a result, I dropped the course as a matter of personal conscience,” she wrote.

Blasphemous Pornography as Required Reading

Best also revealed that the school’s counseling program was using blasphemous and BDSM material as required reading:

I will alert you that Guide to Getting It On, by Paul Joannides, is written as a “revenge for 8 years of Catholic School” and is visually pornographic. For example, it includes illustrations and tips for all sorts of sex acts, including bestiality. It mocks Christianity by depicting a naked man being held up with puppet strings by God, while the Devil has a string on his erect phallus. Another required reading, Ultimate Guide to Kink, by Tristan Taormino, is sado-masochistic erotica describing violent gang sex as punishment for disobedience.

Best said she also shared the syllabus and materials with Fr. John McGarry, the director of campus ministry, and discussed her personal and spiritual objections to the course.

The school prides itself on its commitment to “Jesuit values” and to Catholicism, noting that “many students, staff, and faculty — including non-Catholics — attend weekly Mass as a way to reconnect, re-energize, and remind each other that we, as a community, are stronger together.”

“A Jesuit education is a complete education. It’s easy to talk about working to make the world a better place — but the Jesuits have been doing that work, every day, for almost 500 years,” its website boasts.

At the same time, Santa Clara University prides itself on “inclusive excellence,” including hosting the Rainbow Resource Center as a part of the Office for Multicultural Learning, and offers one of the most radically elastic definitions of transgenderism:

We use trans* to include but not limit to: androgynes, bayot, sadhin, transgender, hijra, mahu, gender variant, baki, travesti, trans-masculine, kathoey, bi-genders, two-spirit, genderqueer, stud, trans-feminine, no-genders…those who see gender as having more than two possibilities, and those who live between or beyond existing options.

Responding to Best’s WSJ op-ed, Santa Clara University said in a statement that California law forces it to meet certain requirements in human sexuality.

“Classroom content examines numerous aspects of human sexuality because understanding these issues is an essential part of preparing students to become licensed therapists,” it reads. “We cannot corroborate all the assertions contained in the Wall Street Journal op-ed, and would not speak to them, consistent with our obligation to safeguard student privacy and our practice not to discuss student matters publicly.”

Originally published in The Stream.

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Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.