So folks can probably understand why I'm especially disturbed by reports of campus enforcement of hate speech codes around the country. For example, here's this at Fox News, "University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs." It turns out that Professor Ken Howell has been fired from the university's Department of Religion for including his personal views on the morality of homosexuality as part of his courses on Catholicism. Howell's biographical page is still available at the university's website. It notes there that:
Kenneth J. Howell is Adjunct Associate Professor of Religious Studies. He concentrates in the history, philosophy, and theology of Catholicism. He has taught at universities in Indiana and Mississippi prior to his appointment at UIUC. He is concurrently Director and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Catholic Thought. He has published four books on religion including an extensive study of science and religion in the Scientific Revolution.It's obvious that Professor Howell is eminently qualified to discuss the religious morality of homosexuality, and why in fact should it be surprising that questions of this nature would arise in classes on the Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought? The man was doing his job. The Champaign News-Gazette has a story as well, where Professor Howell is interviewed:
Howell said he disagrees with the idea that a professor must present lessons without even hinting at his own beliefs on a subject.I highlighted that last sentence. I don't know if it's simply the creeping invidiousness of political correctness on campus, or if things have gotten worse during the Obama interregnum, but the heightened intensity of the anti-intellectualism in academe today is certainly a warning sign for conservatives to redouble their efforts.
"It doesn't seem to me to be particularly honest or fair to a student. If you believe something, you can tell the student that," he said. "Where it becomes problematic is if it becomes injurious to a student by penalizing them for their beliefs. I always tried to be fair and honest and upfront with my students, and engage them on questions of human reason."
In his e-mail to students, Howell wrote: "All I ask as your teacher is that you approach these questions as a thinking adult. That implies questioning what you have heard around you. Unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter. All I encourage is to make informed decisions."
Howell said he's often had students who disagree with him, but "that's always been done with courtesy and respect on both our parts. This semester the students were the most negative and vociferous and critical that I've ever seen."
Warner Todd Huston writes on this at Right Wing News:
So much for schools that foster intellectual exploration and truth.And just remember, "There Is No Such Thing as ‘Hate Speech’."
But that is the left-wing educational system we've been saddled with since the turn of the last century, isn't it? Only atheism, socialism, leftism, communism, anti-Americanism, feminism, homoerotica and a fascistic quashing of free speech… only these are acceptable doctrines for our schools to disseminate, of course.
That fact makes all of this even more reprehensible.
Also Blogging: Neptunus Lex and Weasel Zippers (via Memeorandum).
Cartoon Credit: Bosch Fawstin.
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UPDATE: Jawa Report links, and Midnight Blue sends this link, "Race and the Political Process." Also at The Blog Prof, "University of Illinois Catholicism Instructor fired for agreeing with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral."
7 comments:
I'm glad you support the right of free speech on college campuses.
Do you also agree that CNN was wrong to sack journalist Octavia Nasr for Tweeting that she respected a recently deceased leader of Hezbollah?
re: Old Rebel:
Are you certain that Octavia Nasr was, indeed, fired for Tweeting her respect for Hezbollah, or for another cause? One would think such a position @ CNN would have placed Octavia in a line for a promotion.
Damn it, beat me to it by a couple of hours, OR. Great minds and all that...
I'm with you, Don: hate speech laws are PC bullshit. No one has a right not to be offended. Happy Easter, by the way. I don't think your little sign is hate speech; simple-minded demonizing speech maybe but not hate. And I'm having trouble figuring out how believing that homosexuality isn't immoral is an indication of "anti-intellectualism in academe today". Care to elaborate? I'll just go ahead and assume that you'll ignore my question as well. Cheers, big guy.
Linked!
http://mindnumbedrobot.com/2010/07/10/saturday-robo-love/1693
re: adagioforstrings:
Yes, one would think that if one were living within a partisan ideological bubble. Here in reality she said that she respected one of its leaders (he was an advocate for women's rights in the Muslim world) and despite Don's insistence that the "librul" media takes no heed of right wing opinion she was indeed fired for it.
But why let reality dispute the narrative you've already decided is true, right?
adagioforstrings,
Yep. Here's what a member of the "liberal" media had to say about it.
JBW,
I think DD is once again vigorously ignoring our positions.
I don't blame him, OR. I wouldn't want to have to defend partisan hypocrisy either.
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