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Even as this poor and underpaid columnist attempts to take a few well-deserved days off, the world is nevertheless filled with ominous and scary things that cause him to cry out in distress. Here's one:
According to this morning's Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois has gotten the axe over what the school terms "hate speech." What the hypersensitive school found so hateful was the professor's announcement that he believes the Catholic Church's teaching that homosexual activity is unnatural.
This is not surprising, as the professor, a Mr. Ken Howell, teaches (or rather, taught) classes called "Introduction to Modern Catholicism" and "Modern Catholic Thought," and worse yet, admits to being a practicing Catholic himself.
An e-mail, in which he mentioned natural law as a determinant of what acts are considered "natural" and what acts are "unnatural" was the cause of his undoing, an undoing, by the way, that could only come about in the convoluted reasoning that is so prevalent on university campuses these days, and especially, it seems, at the University of Illinois. (This is the same school that employs the illustrious and unrepentant bomber, Bill Ayers, at its Chicago campus.)
Get this. No student of professor Howell's responded to the e-mail, but an anonymous kid who "claimed to be a friend" of an offended student sent the head of the religion department, Robert McKim, an e-mail in which he accused the professor of "hate speech."
This is the type of irrationality that can only happen at a modern university. A professor, in the course of his professorial duties, explains a tenet of the subject he happens to teach. Whereupon a "friend" responds that another unnamed student finds it offensive, indeed hateful. The university therefore, in its inscrutable logic, fires the professor, it would seem, for the very act of being professorial.
Furthermore, the "friend" declares that the professor was out of bounds in "declaring that homosexual acts violate the laws of man." Hmmm, wasn't there something we learned about the birds and the bees when we were kids? If natural law doesn't define what's natural and what's not, then what does? Or, is there no longer any such thing as natural law at the University of Illinois?
An associate arts and sciences dean, Ann Mester, justifies the firing because the e-mail violates "university standards of inclusivity," even though the university's Academic Staff Handbook gives faculty "freedom in the classroom in developing and discussing according to their areas of competence."
Mr. Howell was certainly within his area of competence. Indeed, he appears to be the only one in this controversy to be competent.
Allow us to explain to the university, and to Mr. McKim and Ms. Mester in particular, that one of the functions of a university is to allow lively and open discussions on matters and issues that concern humanity in all its activities and functions. Preliminary judging as to which subjects and opinions are legitimate and which are "hateful" is contrary to the very essence of the university.
It hardly needs to be mentioned that what Mr. Howell said is in no way "hateful." Again, we find we must instruct the university in matters of semantics. "Hate" involves a personal attack or opinion deliberately directed to offend or harm another person. Any number of "activist" groups regularly use such tactics.
But Mr. Howell said nothing hateful. He was only reciting the facts according to the subject matter the university was paying him to teach. Mentioning natural law (which seems to bother a lot of people these days) in no way implies that he "hates" homosexuals or anybody else. How then does this become "hate speech"?
If the definition of hate speech includes any word or activity that offends another, then the university itself is surely guilty. For it has offended Mr. Howell. It has offended those of his students who agree with him. It has offended the parents of the students who pay dearly for an education. It has offended the Catholic community. It has offended me.
Worse of all, it has offended common sense. And, once again, made a mockery of the concept of a university.
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