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University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs

Published July 09, 2010
| Associated Press

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URBANA, Ill. -- The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.

The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, has taught at the university for nine years. He says his firing violates his academic freedom.

A professor at the university who is also president of the American Association of University Professors agrees. Cary Nelson says teachers are allowed to express their own beliefs.

University spokeswoman Robin Kaler declined comment because Howell's firing is a personnel issue.

The student had a friend register his complaint and has remained anonymous.
(found at foxnews.com)



So much for freedom of speech in our public universities. I could understand this if the man were engaged in something illegal, but the University doesn't seem to understand that they are making a value judgment here. They are promoting the state religion (humanism) and drawing a clear line saying that this man's beliefs are immoral and repugnant to their humanistic religious philosophy. It is more important to them that they promote their ideals than that the basic American liberty to hold and express an opinion counter to the majority be upheld. Oh, if only this were an isolated incident.

Actually, we saw the reverse, the promotion of the closed-minded secular liberalist when little or no academic merit warranted it (or the occasional outcry when such an instructor was not given the undeserved tenure) in my undergraduate school. Granted, not all of the professors were hostile, not even most, but the ones that were seemed to trade on it. And that was fifteen years ago.