About 1,000 members of the American Philosophical Association have signed an online petition urging the group to take a stronger stand against colleges that bar employees and students from engaging in homosexual acts.
The petition accuses the association of failing to enforce a policy that prohibits colleges that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation from posting open jobs with its placement service. The online document lists several religious institutions with ethics policies barring homosexual activity that have advertised through the service in recent years. It urges the association to either block colleges with such policies from using the service or “clearly mark institutions with these policies as institutions that violate our anti-discrimination policy.”
“If the APA is unwilling to take either of these measures,” the petition says, “we request that the APA publicly inform its members that it will not protect homosexual philosophers and remove its anti-discrimination policy to end the illusion that the primary function of the APA is to protect the rights of its members.”
The petition drive is being led Charles Hermes, a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Arlington, who began his effort to pressure the association to enforce its policy in 2007, when he was a doctoral student at Florida State University. Brian Leiter, director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values, has lent momentum to the effort by publicizing it on his widely read blog.
Begun 12 days ago, the petition drive has its critics. Rod Dreher, a columnist at The Dallas Morning News who writes about conservative politics and religion for the popular Web site Beliefnet, recently argued against the effort in a February 21 post. The success of the petition, he said, would mean “no Christian or other religious schools that live by their religion’s teaching on human sexuality, and in particular homosexuality, are to have a place at the professional philosopher’s table.” —Peter Schmidt
