Top University of Illinois administrators have asked a faculty committee to consider whether the Urbana-Champaign campus violated the academic freedom of an adjunct professor of Roman Catholicism who lost his job after his remarks about homosexuality offended a student, the News-Gazette, a local paper, reported. The instructor, Kenneth Howell, has blamed the loss of his job on a student’s complaint about how he discussed the morality of homosexual acts in an e-mail. Michael J. Hogan, president of the University of Illinois system, told the newspaper he had received at least 100 e-mails about the widely publicized case. “We want to be able to reassure ourselves that there was no infringement on academic freedom here,” the paper quoted him as telling the Urbana-Champaign’s faculty senate, whose committee on academic freedom and tenure has been asked to conduct the review.
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8 Responses to U. of Illinois to Review Case of Catholicism Instructor Accused of Antigay Bias
honore - July 14, 2010 at 9:44 am
Another example of duck-speak, politically-correct “speech code”? In many classes I heard comments often that I found personally repugnant or factually specious. If I felt the instructor was one I could communicate my concerns to, I would approach her/him to discuss my issue. If s/he was (by my estimation) an unapproachable, intransigent cretan, I dropped the class and when I received an evaluation/questionnaire and put in writing WHY I had dropped the class. Very little changed in this instructors behavior, but I did what I needed to do to express my displeasure with his pedagogical “style” and its content. What comes of this situation will depend more on who is in leadership and how seriously they are going to take both faculty and student perspectives.A wholesale condemnation of either perspective will only leave UI donning a fluffy clown wig while posing for who’s who in H/E.
evbiii - July 14, 2010 at 10:10 am
If the instructor’s comments were literature based he should be rehired and the student and his/her supporters should be forced to do some research. I was trained to believe that college is a place where ideas are expressed and challenged in a civil manner. Of course that was before I started sitting on committees (smile).
new_theologian - July 14, 2010 at 6:03 pm
If the professor was asked his personal opinion and he responded, then that seems to me a legitimate use of academic freedom. If the professor explained, correctly, that the official position of the Church under consideration as the main topic in the course is that homosexuality is a disorded sexual orientation, and that homosexual acts are also disordered, then, again, this is a legitimate use of academic freedom. If the school is going to permit a course that treats one of the world’s top three religions–something that seems to me perfectly reasonable–then it needs to accept that this will mean that students may be exposed to views they find challenging or even offensive to their own sensibilities.
thomaslawrencelong - July 15, 2010 at 9:33 am
First, three disclaimers. I am a U Illinois alumnus (MA English, 1977) and a former Roman Catholic priest (MA Theology, Catholic University of America, 1981). I am also a gay man.A secular public university can reasonably offer courses in religious traditions, including courses that study the traditions’ moral discourses. Roman Catholicism has had and continues to have signficiant historical influence, much of it salutary (e.g. American Catholicism’s support of organized labor). Students with a variety of philosophical or spiritual commitments (or not at all) may benefit from a scholarly exploration of this religious tradition.A scholar in such a course can fairly explain the Church’s employment of Aristotelian teleology in the development of natural law theology. He can explain the philosophical understanding of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality (much as a course on Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism might do).However, Dr. Howell’s email (oh, damn you, email, for what you have made us say!) raised for me several concerns. First, the introduction of the issue of sex with a minor (para. 7) in the context of a discussion of male homosexuality is a lighted match in a room full of gasoline cans. It is one of the oldest libels, and one currently being used in Uganda to urge passage of anti-gay legislation. It’s a nasty piece of work in a scholarly discourse. Second, Dr. Howell appears to have little or no knowledge of gay male relationships. He opines, “To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the ‘woman’ while the other acts as the ‘man.’” Huh!?! I don’t even know how to begin to respond to that bit of ignorance.Third, Dr. Howell’s sole medical source(“a physician has told me that these [sexual] acts are deleterious to the health of one or possibly both of the men”) is similarly ignorant about the range of sexual behavior in gay relationships. In the age of AIDS it also constitutes another frequent slander. It also prompts one to wonder, though Howell doesn’t seem to explore it, might lesbian sexual intimacies be permitted under the utilitarian critique since they do not present these supposed risks?So the email is poorly written, sloppily thought, and poorly informed.Maybe he can claim that it was all a joke: He was just trying to set up a weak straw argument that he wanted his students to react and respond to.
vernaye - July 15, 2010 at 11:39 am
Apparently only commenter #4 actually read the email. The link is in the article.The instructor is clarifying the opposition between utilitarianism and natural moral law. While he tries to present these two positions objectively, it seems unable to hide his rather obvious personal positions on the matters at hand.Still, he makes it pretty clear that students are meant to think these problems through for themselves rather than take his word at face value. I don’t think that professors should use their classes as a bully pulpit, but surely absolute objectivity in a class such as this is simply impossible. The only really disturbing thing is how ignorant the instructor seems to be about his own prejudices and limitations.
opinionsforyou - July 15, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Apparently most liberals aren’t very good at reading. Sorry #4, but your observations fall flat once a person actually reads the email.The email says:If two men consent to engage in sexual acts, according to utilitarianism, such an act would be morally okay. But notice too that if a ten year old agrees to a sexual act with a 40 year old, such an act would also be moral if even it is illegal under the current law. The writer, being Catholic, is probably thinking of the very public news about older male priests molesting young male children. You might want to watch the news sometime, responder #4. This is technically a homosexual act, but is obviously not a characterization of normal homosexual relationships.You might also notice the writer qualifies his observation of homosexual relationships where one acts as the man and one as the woman. Since this is so pervasive it is a stereotype, I think it is odd that you choose to berate him. He admits his knowledge is limited. But if the stereotype doesn’t hold, you might explain that to the producers of Will and Grace, to the new Modern Family sitcome producers and writers, etc etc. Stereotypes don’t appear out of nowhere. Perhaps they are inaccurate, but you need to address that point differently.Where the writer goes wrong is in making it very clear, in light of his position as a teacher in a secular university, of his biases against homosexuality. He did a good job of laying addressing the main question, but then deviated into an argument of why homosexuality is wrong. If he had stayed the course and rethought the last 2-3 paragraphs, he might have kept himself out of trouble.Secular universities do not welcome—they do not tolerate—any point of view that runs counter to that of liberals. So, any conservative must be aware of monitoring his speech within those institutions. Look at the professor from North Carolina who is now being denied tenure because of the views he posted to Townhall.com.Similarly, most Christian universities do not allow certain views to be espoused by their faculty. It’s the nature of the beast. Better to learn it and keep yourself out of hot water than to pretend the university really is a place where ideas can flow freely. It isn’t. Welcome to reality.
softshellcrab - July 15, 2010 at 6:29 pm
What a great adjunct! These people are paid very little. I hire adjuncts, and if one was working as hard as Prof. Howell I would kiss him! (and I guess scare the Hell out of him since I’m a man) Did you see the long and thoughtful email he wrote? What a lot of work for a guy getting adjunct money. I take my hat off to this guy. Send him to our school! What a worker! They are crazy to get rid of a guy this good. By the way, this was a course in teachings of the Catholic Church. I think his comments in this regard were very thoughtfully explained and entirely appropriate for the class. If I took a class in “Teachings of Muslim Religion”, should I take umbrage at the teacher telling us that their religion teaches that women should be subservient and veiled? I may not agree, but why would I get angry at the Muslim teacher telling me that in his class on Muslim teachings?
agpbloom - July 15, 2010 at 7:16 pm
softshellcrab (post #7) writes:”If I took a class in “Teachings of Muslim Religion”, should I take umbrage at the teacher telling us that their religion teaches that women should be subservient and veiled? I may not agree, but why would I get angry at the Muslim teacher telling me that in his class on Muslim teachings?”You are right on target softshellcrab! I am amazed at homosexuality advoactes who teach history are completely ignorant and insensitive regarding what ancient Jewish and Christian scriptures have to say about their chosen lifestyle. Here, I am not talking about the modern libeal theological interpretations of gay lifestyles. You know, the ones that rewrite the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah as one giant case of “inhospitality” instead of acknowledging the decadence implicit in the ancient Genesis account.Many of these groups will continue to vocally question the Judeo-Christian concept of marriage and family, especially when it arises in the context of a course about Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant. Tragically, they want to shut down the same questioning when it arises in relation to every sort of sexual experimentation that violates the sacred beliefs of large sectors of the American population.Don’t they realize that millions of Americans refuse to compromise their beliefs about the family because the stakes are far greater than those involved in politically correct academia? For many of these Christians, eternal life itself is at stake, and this is endangered by a blanket endorsement of the growing LGBTS agenda.