Academic freedom is the hallmark of university life. It is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the institution, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without retribution in the form of repression, job loss, or even in the extreme, imprisonment.
Last week a Catholic professor, Kenneth Howell, was fired from the University of Illinois for sending an email to students enrolled in his Introduction to Catholicism course explaining how homosexual activity is contrary to the natural moral law. Apparently academic freedom at the University of Illinois does not apply to Professor Howell who dared to teach his students the truth of Catholic doctrine.
Professor Howell has taught “Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought” for nearly a decade in the university’s Department of Religion. He recently acknowledged that over the years some students have taken issue with Catholic teaching but that this past spring he “noticed the most vociferous reaction that I have ever had” regarding the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. Hoping to clarify the teaching in advance of an exam, Professor Howell sent an email to his class contrasting how utilitarianism and natural law theory each determine the morality of homosexual activity. One student immediately complained that the professor’s words were “hate speech.”
Charges of “hate speech” soon filled the air at the university as political correctness went into overdrive. Not only was Professor Howell summoned by the Chair of the Religion Department to explain himself , he was duly informed that his email had been forwarded to the politically correct Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Concerns and notified that his employment at the university had been terminated. Academic freedom at the University of Illinois doesn’t apply to course on the Catholic Faith or to professors who accurately explain the Catholic Faith to students.
As outrageous as this incident seems to be for many fair minded people, sadly it has become the norm in the politically correct world of academia. Censorship and intolerance are routinely attacked by the “opened-minded” faculties of American universities except when the course subject doesn’t fit their secularist world view. Professor Howell’s dismissal from the University of Illinois is not only patently unfair but it is grossly prejudicial and clearly a bigoted expression of intolerant anti-Catholicism. To fire a professor for teaching the actual subject matter of the course because a small-minded student feigns upset and a politically correct university bureaucracy disagree with the subject matter is nothing less than censorship and intolerance. The University of Illinois should be ashamed of their outrageous reaction and intolerant attack upon Professor Howell. Sadly the sign stating “Catholics Need Not Apply” has been posted above the door in Urbana, Illinois.
