Dr. Rachel Tudor, a professor of English, Humanities, and Philosophy at SOSU has been denied tenure despite ample support from her colleagues, immediate supervisors, a Faculty Senate resolution with no opposition, and two Faculty Appeals Committee rulings in her favor. No explanation was given for the rejection, and she was blocked from reapplying (as many professors successfully do), again without explanation. At this point, Tudor has exhausted every forum to rectify her situation and her contract with the university will be terminated as of May 31 “without cause.”

All the evidence suggests that Dr. Tudor has been discriminated against for being transgender, primarily by Dr. Douglas McMillan, SOSU’s Vice President for Academic Affairs. When Tudor first transitioned, McMillan request she be terminated because her identity “offends his Baptist beliefs.” Though he could not have her fired, he was successful at requiring she only be allowed to use a single-stall restroom on a different floor from her office. In addition, the dean who oversees Tudor’s department, Dr. Lucretia Scoufos, regularly disrespected Tudor by referring to her with male pronouns. These two individuals had sole authority over the original tenure decision and McMillan was also who blocked her from reapplying.

Despite the way it seems her administrators went out of their way to block her continued employment, Tudor appreciates how others have stood up for her:

I’m completely overwhelmed and gratified so many people have taken initiative and shown their support. It’s amazing to see that people have such integrity.

According to a recent study, nearly half (47 percent) of transgender people have been fired, not hired, or denied promotion for their identity. Oklahoma has no state-level discrimination protections for gender identity, and without a federal ENDA, there is nothing to protect talented, successful employees like Tudor from being terminated without cause. Still, Tudor has taken her case to the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission, the US Department of Education, and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in hopes of intervention. You can support her by signing a petition for her reinstatement.

The following was written by a student at the Catholic University of America.

Late one night during my sophomore year, here at CUA, I was asleep in my dorm room in Ryan.  It was probably around 3:00 AM when I awoke to several loud bangs on my door.  I heard several voices out in the hallway, all male, and they were all laughing and talking about me.  They yelled, “Yo, come out here faggot!”

I continued to lie in my bed; my heart was racing, and I didn’t know what to do.  Another male then said, “Yo, get the fuck out here faggot so I can beat the shit out of you!”  I glanced across the room to my roommate’s bed to see if he had woken up, but it seemed he hadn’t.

The group in the hallway continued to bang on the door as hard and as much as they could.  The hinges on the door were rattling and I was afraid that given the force with which they were hitting the door, the door itself would break at any given moment.

Then, the banging stopped and the voices were reduced to light giggling and laughter.  It was at this point that I could hear the guys outside my room writing on the whiteboard outside my door.  After a few minutes they began to bang on the door some more, screaming for me to come out there to see them, then the voices died down and then finally there were no more sounds in the hallway.

I was breathing rapidly, and it was only after ten minutes that I had the courage to get out of my bed to go over to the door.  I looked through the peephole and saw that no one was outside.  I opened the door and looked at my whiteboard and written all across it were profanities regarding my sexuality along with vulgar images of penises.

I called DPS and they responded and I filed a report, but nothing ever came of it.  I lived two doors down from one of my two RAs, yet neither he nor the other one responded that night.  Neither of my RAs were around that night, and as such, there was no one who could have responded right away to help me.  I felt as though I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, except for close friends, and that there was no one who could legitimately sympathize with me.

That night, I felt entirely alone.

The featured editorial in yesterday’s The Chronicle of Higher Education doesn’t offer much to be optimistic about. The author, Stephen T. Asma, is a philosophy professor at Columbia College Chicago, and you know his article is going to be a farce just from its title: “The New Athe­ists’ Nar­row Worldview.” I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t write the title, but he should complain; an ad hominem attack like “narrow” (an intellectual’s synonym for “stupid”) doesn’t do much to set up the credibility of an argument.

Sure enough, Asma’s argument doesn’t have much credibility to preserve and his title is only the beginning of his ad hominem. In fact, his piece covers all the memetic bases when it comes to baseless critiques of atheism. He smears atheists with Marx’s endorsement, then hammers home the stereotype of amorality with Khmer Rouge and Red Guard, stopping just short of Nazism, but not before the damage is done. Ironically, his trite attempt to paint atheism as amoral is supposed to be a critique of Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape, a book about how we can be moral without religion.

Asma’s campaign is as ill-supported as the attack ads he opens with, suggesting that the animism of the Eastern religions keeps the poor, starving people of third-world nations happy, so it’s not a bad thing. Talk about putting the chicken before the egg. Just because animism is lacking in the orthodoxy department, that doesn’t mean it’s any less effective at pacifying the oppressed. And while many of Buddhism’s teachings certainly can be understood and appreciated without any supernatural presuppositions, serving whiskey to the phii/neak ta spirits isn’t helping anybody. As one commenter pointed out, it’s Santa Claus’s cookies for adults.

What is most disappointing is his glib suggestion that as long as someone can derive something good from religion, then all religion should be “cherished and preserved.” In other words, don’t invite Stephen Asma to your next AA or NA meeting:

But I’d advance a much more rad­i­cal ar­gu­ment as well. Not only should the more rational and therapeutic elements be distilled from the opi­ate of re­li­gion. But the wacky, su­per­sti­tious, cloud-cuck­oo-land forms of re­li­gion, too, should be cherished and preserved, for those forms of religion some­times do great good for our emo­tion­al lives, even when they com­pro­mise our more-rational lives.

In case you weren’t sure whether Asma was really suggesting that opiates—constructed delusions—are a good thing, he makes it quite clear later in the piece: he is.

Is an­i­mism a mere “opi­ate,” as the athe­ists ar­gue? Well, yes, but don’t underestimate opi­ates. They can be high­ly in­spi­ra­tion­al and con­sol­ing. Af­ter all, a drunk­en man is usu­al­ly a lit­tle hap­pi­er than a so­ber one. In fact, to con­tin­ue the met­a­phor, op­pos­ing re­li­gion is a lot like pro­hi­bi­tion­ists’ oppos­ing drink­—a rath­er cru­el pro­ject in my view. I’d glad­ly give my copies of Mao’s Little Red Book, and Daw­kins’s The God De­lu­sion for a six-pack of Grolsch. But if all that is too of­fen­sive, we might re­place the word “opi­ate” with “an­al­ge­sic,” and my point may be more a­gree­a­ble.

How primal. He ignores the pivotal argument of the very “new atheists” he’s critiquing that you don’t need religion to have comfort or emotional solace or meaning in life. But if religion is the drug, then the new atheism (if something 100+ years strong can be called “new”) isn’t “prohibition”; it’s MADD.

Asma’s essentialism is regressive: if it feels good, do it. After all, if you live in the third world, the delusion of other-worldly comforts might be the only good thing you have in your life. But with this condescending argument, he is treating the very symptoms of an unegalitarian world with more of the very systems of control that keep our lives so disparate. Just because we may have evolved a tendency toward belief doesn’t mean that believing is good for us, let alone that we should encourage it.

If the brunt of the piece isn’t convincing enough (it shouldn’t be), Asma mixes in some condescending pathos by trying to confirm that there really are no atheists in foxholes. After all, he’s agnostic, but he sure prayed when his son was in the emergency room. How convincing. Even though he knew it wouldn’t help heal his son, he just couldn’t help but grovel and negotiate with something or someone he’s not sure he believes in (or whatever agnostic means to him). This is the model of rationalism we’re supposed to respect?

Apparently, Mr. Asma has confused the definitions of “rational” and “virtuous.”

Re­li­gious ideas that en­cour­age de­hu­man­iza­tion, vi­o­lence, and fac­tion­al­ism should be re­formed or di­min­ished, while those that hu­man­ize, con­sole, and in­spire should be fos­tered.

What does he think the “new atheists” are trying to do? The whole point of Harris’ book is to “determine human values.” It’s in the subtitle. Asma seems to think that if a good idea is couched in religion, it’s a credit to the religion as opposed to just a credit to the idea itself.

Wheth­er it is Ca­thol­i­cism, Protestantism, Is­lam, Bud­dhism, or animism, the vir­tues can be re­tained while the vices are mod­er­at­ed. In short, the re­duc­tion of human suf­fer­ing should be the stand­ard by which we meas­ure ev­ery re­li­gion.

Irrationality is a wildcard. You can’t distinguish between the legitimacy of different ideas that are all irrational. Why are dipsomaniacal evil spirits worth any more consideration than an all-seeing god? Are unicorns worth more or less consideration than leprechauns? There is no criteria for differentiating between them, because such analysis requires conformity to the rules of the natural universe in which we live.

If the only way you’ve been taught to have meaning in life is to find it through a higher power and you haven’t fully shaken that construct, it’s what you’ll revert to in times of crisis. I don’t know what Asma has to say in his book, “Why I Am a Buddhist,” but clearly his claim to agnosticism is merely symbolic, perhaps to suggest that he’s got some expertise as a nonbeliever. (He’s no ally of mine.) If he’s praying (and then playing apologetics for it, as this entire piece seems to be), he hasn’t sufficiently dismantled the only context he’s known. He still finds meaning in life through fear of a great or tiny tyrant, and he’s attacking atheism because he cannot overcome that fear through rationality.

But Sam Har­ris’s new book may be a sub­tle turn­ing point toward a more nor­ma­tive so­cial agenda. If pub­lic pol­i­cy is even­tu­al­ly ex­pect­ed to flow from athe­ism, then its pro­po­nents need to have a more nu­anced and glob­al un­der­stand­ing of re­li­gion.

“Social agenda” isn’t a very covert form of fear-mongering, especially for atheists, the least-trusted minority in our society. And while there might be much I still don’t know about religion, I’m feeling pretty good that I have a better understanding of it than a nationally-published philosophy professor. I wish I could give higher education the credit.

…

Even though I was triggered by Asma’s piece to write my own response, please also read through all the comments he’s received. Plenty of folks have written some very thoughtful retorts to many of Asma’s points and deserve credit for it. If these anonymous screennames are reading The Chronicle, they hopefully are in higher education themselves, an assumption which does give me hope after the miserable experience of  reading Asma’s hackneyed piece. I’d love to know who those people are; they should be the ones featured in The Chronicle.

This year will go down in history as full equality became one step closer for millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adult community members.  From the historic Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which will eventually allow openly lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers to serve,  to full marriage equality in Washington D.C., to victories such as hospital visitation mandates for LGBT families nationally.

One of the biggest under-reported stories of 2010 affects a population who mostly cannot yet legally vote nor make a donation to a campaign or an organization, and most of whom still depend on an adult to look out for their best interests and in some cases save their lives:

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming youth and allies.

In 2010 we saw bullying and harassment in schools and communities in Washington, D.C, Texas,  Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Massachusetts,  Colorado,  Virginia, Florida, New York, Michigan, Utah, Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Louisiana, Idaho, Connecticut and California, and those were just the stories that we heard about.

In more than half of the United States of America in 2010, youth experienced bullying and harassment.

In 2010, we lost over 20 youth due to reported suicide from bullying and harassment. Keep in mind: those are only the reported cases. Across the nation, we were heartbroken and shocked to learn about many suicides due to bullying harassment, including Seth Walsh, Tyler Clementi, Phoebe Prince, Chloe Lacey, and others. The youngest student that attempted to take hir life from severe bullying and harassment at school was just six years old. Not every story made the news.

This year we also saw student heroes like Will Phillips, Constance McMillen, Ceara Sturgis, Paige Rawl, Graeme Taylor, Derrick Martin stand up and fight back after serve bullying and harassment at school. There are countless other youth whose stories have yet to be told about their struggle, strength, courage, and pain facing bullying and harassment in schools, colleges, and universities.  Over 150,000 students miss school each day due to bullying and harassment. And 9 out 10 LGBT youth experience bullying and harassment—especially given the advent of  Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. According to GLSEN, 40% of all youth who have access to a computer have experienced cyber bullying.

Youth in 2010 have faced not just bullying and harassment, but homelessness as well.  Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT and are struggling for food and shelter across this nation. Most of these homeless youth were thrown out of their homes or disowned by their families, left on the streets because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

And even progressive advances such as the DADT Repeal Act of 2010 still do not address creating safe spaces for lesbian and gay youth in JROTC, young adults in ROTC, or cadets in our nation’s schools, colleges, and universities.

How are we truly providing high quality education if we are not providing inclusive safe schools?

In 2011 we must fight together to make safe schools a priority so that all youth—regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity (actual or perceived), socioeconomic status, disability or impairment , religion, immigration status, race, national origin, HIV/AIDS status, or any other identity—are free from bullying, harassment and discrimination.

What can you do?

Join the movement for safe schools in your local communities and stand up to bullying and harassment when you hear it, see it and take action. Help create inclusive safe spaces and anti-bullying and harassment polices on a local, state-wide, and federal level such as the Student Non-Discrimination Act and Safe Schools Improvement Act.

Make 2011 the year we invest in youth and make sure no child is left behind by making inclusive safe schools  a reality.

Get Involved today: Safe Schools Action Network, GLSEN, Make it Better Project, Project Life Vest, Operation Shine America, PFLAG, Trevor Project, It Gets Better Project, Ali Forney Center, GSA Network and your local PTA, LGBT community Center, classroom, school board or college campus.

If you need help please call The Trevor Help Line at: 1-800-U- TREVOR (800-488-7386)

There’s something I think is unique about this group, or at the very least about the attention it has let itself get. I don’t think there is another group for higher education professionals that is specifically for individuals with queer identities. This might sound surprising. Both ACPA and NASPA have many LGBT-specific efforts and goals, and certainly it is no secret that most of the members of the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals identity as queer as well. But none of these groups are specifically for LGBTQ professionals.

Another interesting aspect of the Presidents group is a willingness to be public advocates. One of my largest complaints about higher education is that we have this profession full of people who study and promote social justice in their work, and yet the field itself is so very insular and self-serving such that much of that potential for change stops at the campus border. The Presidents group, on the other hand, has made itself quite visible, and now they have also now produced an It Gets Better-esque/Coming Out video that I think is extremely effective.

While I know these university leaders have very busy lives administrating their institutions, I hope this is a trend that they continue. Higher education is a source of leadership and support embedded in our culture, and only good can from its professionals speaking out and trying to make a difference in society.

Read more about the group here and check out the video below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QKwyJAIaKQ

It’s called “Encouraging Religious Pluralism & Interfaith Cooperation: A winter holiday conversation.”

That’s right, this student affairs professional organization has a whole commission dedicated to spirituality, faith, religion, and meaning.

And what’s this conference call going to be about?

The end of the fall semester presents an opportunity for university staff to educate students about the many religious celebrations that take place at the end of the calendar year other than Christmas. However, finding ways to have meaningful celebrations that are inclusive of multiple faith traditions, while avoiding overly simplistic gestures can be challenging. This hot topics discussion will provide participants with the opportunity to learn about best practices and conversation on promoting religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation on campus during the winter holiday break.

As long as all faiths are included, no one will feel excluded right?

And who’s leading the call?

The Reverend Gregory W. McGonigle has served as Director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL) at Oberlin College since 2008. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School in 2004, focused on academic chaplaincy, interfaith relations, and American religious history.

A Master of Divinity, of course.

Dear ACPA members,

There are atheist students on your campus. They might call themselves nonbelievers, freethinkers, agnostics, brights, secular, or humanists, or whatever, or nothing at all, but they’re there. They don’t identify with faith. They don’t identify with spirituality. They don’t identify with religion. Some of them have valid challenges to faith, spirituality, and religion to make. Believe it or not, they are capable of making meaning without any of the mystical stuff you keep triumphing. And they already feel ostracized on their campuses. Please stop ignoring them.

Love,

Zack

The recent issue of the Secular Student Alliance newsletter offers a debate on interfaith movements. I have to say I agree with Ed Clint (and Hemant Mehta) that interfaith movements, by definition, are contrary to the experience of nonbelievers. An interfaith community is one of different faiths, but of faiths, nonetheless. How could it be inclusive of people without faith who are intent on challenging faith?

As long as the focus is on faith, religious privilege will prevail.

Thanks for such a critical, progressive approach to creating inclusive campuses, ACPA.

Here’s my latest. All similarities to other individuals or names are PURELY coincidental, I assure you…….

All 16 members of Sparta College’s acclaimed all-male a cappella group, Spartappella, announced this week that they would not be returning to campus after Fall Break. After negotiations all summer, the group has secured a professional recording contract and will begin work on their premiere wide-release album immediately.

The group’s conductor, Bobbie Fritz ‘10, explained that even though the membership of Spartappella changes from year to year, this year’s group members were “uniquely in sync and eager to take our sound to the street. According to a recent Washington Post article, the street is crying out for dorky but charming college guys.”

…

Read the rest over at The Cronk.

(Click here to see past articles I’ve written for the Cronk.)

While this is a thorough research study, there is still valuable (if not crucial) data through its pages that demonstrate a sense of urgency for our whole society. Universities are often seen as liberal, welcoming environments, but this exhaustive study shows that for members of the queer community, the campus climate is often anything but welcoming.

I will be offering various posts about it throughout the week, but I want to start today with a primer for how this research was conducted. Because of its scope and density, it can be hard to approach, and there is a lot to be learned simply from the methods of the researchers. I hope this post is a helpful guide for understanding the results.

Overlapping Identities

What makes this study so complex is that the sample has a variety of overlapping identities. It’s not quite as simple as having one control and one variable. There are numerous variables, and aspects of the sample overlap in ways that can be confusing at first.

For example, the 5,149 respondents included undergraduate students (46%), graduate students (17%), faculty members (10%), staff members (21%), and administrators (7%) from campuses in all 50 states. That means that throughout the results, “respondents” does not mean just students. Obviously, the data is analyzed to control for different roles on campus; however, most of the results speak to all respondents’ perceptions.

Consider, then, the different intersections of gender identity, gender expression, sexual identity, and race and it’s clear to see that there are a lot of different overlapping groups. This is all important to understand for folks who might think that campus climate is only determined by students, or for folks who think there are only two discreet groups: queer folks and non-queer folks.

Campus Climate

It is obviously important to define the concept of campus climate, since that is what is measured by this study. There is a very detailed review of how climate has been defined as well as the different ways it has (and hasn’t) been studied. I think the Transformational Tapestry Model conceptualized by Rankin and Reason (2008) offers the best understanding of this concept. Campus climate is defined as

current attitudes, behaviors and standards, and practices of employees and students of an institution.

According to the model, there are six independent, yet interconnected areas that influence campus climate:

» Access and retention (i.e., includes access to higher education and provision of the necessary supports for success and retention)

» Research and scholarship (i.e., includes encouragement of diversity in educational and scholarly activity)

» Inter- and intra-group relations (i.e., includes diverse student body with educationally purposeful interventions and interactions)

» Curriculum and pedagogy (i.e., includes diversity education and proactive educational interventions)

» University policies and services (i.e., includes university commitment to diversity and social justice through response to harassment, and written and behavioral policies)

» External relationships (i.e., includes acknowledgment of and response to external influences in society and government)

When a campus climate is perceived as negative, it can impact students’ educational performance, attrition, and adjustment, as well as the personal and professional development and retention of employees.

In terms of sexual identity, there has been limited study of campus climates, and in terms of gender identity (particularly for those outside the gender binary), there has been virtually none. This is by far the most comprehensive study of campus climates for LGBTQQ individuals.

Sexual Identity (LGBQ) and Gender Identity (Trans and GNC)

One of the most interesting things about this study is what it reveals about how individuals identify. Participants were asked a variety of questions with the opportunity to open answer any of them. They were asked about their birth sex, their gender identity, their gender expression, their sexual identity (the term they use), and who they are attracted to. This was then coded to create two general groups.

In terms of sexual identity, respondents were grouped as LGBQ or Heterosexual. Due to a small number of responses, respondents who identified as “asexual” or “don’t know” were not included in analyses regarding sexual identity. It is interesting to note here that while 53% of respondents were gay, lesbian or similar, 12.3% identified as bisexual and 15.8% identified as queer. This might surprise some who are unaware of the way “queer” is growing in popularity as a self-identifier. It was a more prominent term for students (about 20%), but was also used by faculty (11.2 %), staff (9.6%), and administrators (7.5%).

In terms of gender identity, respondents were grouped as men and women, transgender masculine spectrum (birth sex female), transgender feminine spectrum (birth sex male), and gender non-conforming (GNC). Another interesting note here is that more individuals identified as GNC (8.1%) than as transmasculine or transfeminine combined (5.4%). This speaks to the same sense of ambiguity achieved by the sexual identity of “queer.”

It’s important to note that sexual identity and gender identity are two separate breakdowns of the sample and are not mutually exclusive. There are likely respondents who would fall under both the LGBQ and Trans/GNC groupings as well as respondents who only fall into one group or the other. This is important to remember when analyzing the results in regard to these two identifiers.

Intersections with Racial Identity

This study also looks at the interactions of race with sexual identity and gender identity. A bit less than a quarter of respondents identified as one of the “People of Color” categories, which included “African, “African American/Black,” Alaskan Native, “Asian,” “Asian American,” Southeast Asian,” “Caribbean/West Indian,” “Latin American,” “Latino(a)/Hispanic,” “Middle Eastern,” “Native American,” and “Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native.”

Respondents could identify with multiple identities. I think it’s helpful to see the care taken to create inclusive categories for these identities, which is the only reason I reproduce them here.

Harassment

I also want to offer the definition of the word “harassment” used by the study, as some may not understand the breadth of this term. Harassment is:

Exclusionary (e.g., shunned, ignored), intimidating, offensive and/or hostile conduct (harassing behavior) that had interfered with their ability to work or learn on their campus within the past year.

This is a slightly more nuanced definition from United States Code.

Forms of harassment revealed by the study include:

» Receiving derogatory remarks
» Feeling deliberately ignored or excluded
» Feeling isolated or left out
» Observing others staring
» Being singled out as a resident authority to their identity
» Feeling intimidated or bullied
» Fearing getting a bad grade because of a hostile classroom environment
» Receiving low performance evaluations
» Receiving derogatory written comments
» Being assumed of admission or hire because of identity
» Fearing for physical safety
» Being victim of a crime
» Being target of graffiti
» Being target of physical violence

What To Expect…

In the coming days, I’ll be writing with more detail about the study’s findings. Look forward to reading about what respondents are experiencing, what perceptions respondents have of campus climate, individual and institutional responses to campus climate, and potential best practices.

This is important research and I hope that my posts can make it more tangible for folks who won’t have access to the full study or who might struggle to wade through all the data.

If you have any questions about what I’ve shared so far, please feel free to include them in the comments.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to attend the Congressional briefing for the new study from Campus Pride, the 2010 State of Higher Education for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People. My original plan was to report on the briefing (pics below), but now that I have a copy of the 180+ page study in my hands, I’m going to pour through it and offer a more detailed report next week.

In the meantime, check out the courage of a group of students at the University of Rhode Island who have been protesting sing 12:01 AM yesterday morning until their administrators follow through on promises for LGBT support and campus safety. Matt Comer’s been doing some great coverage on the Campus Pride blog:

» Announcement of protest.
» Protest underway.
» Photos from the protest.
» URI blocks press coverage.
» Protest update and news round-up.

I wish the best for these students. They are advocating for their lives. Keep up the good work!

Here are a few pictures from yesterday’s briefing.

Angela Peoples, Policy and Advocacy Manager for Campus Progress:

Jacob Wilson, student at Iowa State University (and friend of the blog):

Have a good weekend everyone.

Gays are pedophiles (the Catholic Church still thinks so). (Also still: Trans women are just men who want to molest little girls in the bathroom.) Gays want to kidnap kids. Gays want to recruit kids. Gays want to teach kids to be gay. Gays want to teach kids about gay sex. Gays want to teach kids about gay marriage. Gays want to teach kids that gay people exist.

Now, the last two don’t sound so bad, but they are always presented in a way to insinuate the old language. The message is the same: gays are evil and our kids are at risk. We’ve got to protect them!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l61Pd5_jHQw

Today we learned about a number of teenage suicides that were fomented by anti-gay bullying. Justin Aaberg of Minnesota hung himself in July. Billy Lucas of Indiana hung himself just last week. Both were 15. (Hat tip to Towleroad for reporting on each: here and here.)

It seems that students were relentless at tormenting Billy Lucas while teachers and administrators were oblivious.

According to WTHR:

Friends of Lucas say that he had been tormented for years.

“Some people at school called him names,” Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas’ sexual orientation, and that Lucas, for the most part, did little to defend himself.

“He would try to but people would just try to break him down with words and stuff and just pick on him,” Hughes said.

According to WXIN:

Students told Fox59 News it was common knowledge that children bullied Billy and from what they said, it was getting worse. Last Thursday, Billy’s mother found him dead inside their barn. He had hung himself.

Students said on that same day, some students told Billy to kill himself.

“They said stuff like ‘you’re like a piece of crap’ and ‘you don’t deserve to live.’ Different things like that. Talked about how he was gay or whatever,” said Swango.

Principal Phil Chapple doesn’t deny that students are bullied in the high school, but he said he didn’t know Billy was one of the victims.

“We were not aware of that situation,” said Chapple.

The case of Justin Aaberg reveals how school teachers can be so oblivious to gay bullying: because they’re instructed to.

As reported by WCCO, The Anoka-Hennepin School District has a policy that reads:

Teaching about sexual orientation is not a part of the District adopted curriculum; rather, such matters are best addressed within individual family homes, churches, or community organizations.

How horrid is that? A school refuses to teach about a natural part of human diversity and leaves it to the community to continue reinforcing all the negative messages that aren’t based on truth.

And will the school change its curriculum policy? No.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District said the curriculum policy and bullying are two entirely separate issues.

“It’s very difficult. We have a community that has widely varying opinions, and so to respect all families, as the policy says, we ask teachers to remain neutral,” said District Spokeswoman Mary Olson.

Remain neutral. A kid was harassed to such an extent that he didn’t think his life was worth living and teachers have to remain neutral to “respect families.”

Read it again. That is the world we live in. That is enshrined homophobia. That is a policy that represents fear motivated by demonization.

Incidentally, GLSEN today published the key findings of its 2009 National School Climate Survey. Here are some chilling numbers for you:

84.6% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 40.1% reported being physically harassed and 18.8% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.

63.7% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 27.2% reported being physically harassed and 12.5% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their gender expression.

72.4% heard homophobic remarks, such as “faggot” or “dyke,” frequently or often at school.

Nearly two-thirds (61.1%) of students reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than a third (39.9%) felt unsafe because of their gender expression.

That’s last year. Not 1985; 2009. It makes me ill just thinking about it. And what did the study find worked at helping reducing these numbers? In addition to having a GSA,

The presence of supportive staff contributed to a range of positive indicators including fewer reports of missing school, fewer reports of feeling unsafe, greater academic achievement, higher educational aspirations and a greater sense of school belonging.

Students attending schools with an anti-bullying policy that included protections based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression heard fewer homophobic remarks, experienced lower levels of victimization related to their sexual orientation, were more likely to report that staff intervened when hearing homophobic remarks and were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff than students at schools with a general policy or no policy.

But unfortunately:

Despite the positive benefits of these interventions, less than a half of LGBT students (44.6%) reported having a Gay-Straight Alliance at school, slightly more than half (53.4%) could identify six or more supportive educators and less than a fifth (18.2%) attended a school that had a comprehensive anti-bullying policy.

What’s worse, we know that these numbers translate into higher education as well. A new study, “State of Higher Education for LGBT People” is being released this month that shows young people continue to experience harassment for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression on our college campuses.

83% of LGBT college students reported experiencing harassment for their sexual identity, with numbers even higher for students who were trans-identified. In fact, 87% of trans-masculine identified individuals reported experience harassment for their gender expression with 82% of trans-feminine identified individuals reporting similar harassment.

The problem here is that our schools aren’t educating. We aren’t willing to talk about what we know. Gender and sexuality are a part of who humans are, but we refuse to dispense uniform informed information to our young people. Out of “respect,” we prefer to let stereotypes and fear persist.

This is a crime against our society, and the deaths of Billy Lucas and Justin Aaberg rest on the shoulders of groups like Focus on the Family who insist that sexual orientation not be taught in our schools.

So you get to pick. Do we teach kids about the realities of the world or do we sustain the ignorance that drains them of all meaning to live?

But while post-9/11 bigotry against Islam was being discussed like it was news, some other studies showed that Manchurian Muslims aren’t the only nonsense Americans buy into.

A Gallup poll found that about 75% of Americans believe in at least one form of paranormal activity—some many more. Take a look:

I remember a point in my life where I might have believed in one, if not more, of these. For example, I am a perfect picture of a Virgo (what are my readers getting me for my birthday??), and I remember one day when I read my horoscope at the end of the day and it described the day I had had in ridiculous detail. I was convinced.

Of course, I was wrong. Astrology is BS. Just ask yourself this question: who writes your horoscope and how?

It’s disappointing, but perhaps unsurprising, that so many people are so easily duped. I wonder what the correlation would be if the same sample were asked if they believed being gay was a choice or that children of same-sex couples are not as well-adjusted as those of opposite-sex couples.

Unfortunately, this study showed no connection between level of education and level of gullibility. But another study did on one compelling point.

The Pew Research Center conducted a study about Americans’ perceptions of the future. One of the items was whether they believed Jesus Christ would return by 2050. One of the biggest factors that affected how people responded was the level of education they had achieved.

Those with college educations were much less likely to believe Jesus would be returning. Even those with only some college responded differently than those with only a high school education.

This, I think, bodes well for higher education. It’s one little observation about one little study, but I still think it’s one to be proud of.

A college education, in addition to preparing folks for their chosen profession, should promote critical thinking skills. While some might be saddened to see a loss of faith, I am proud to see an increase in rational thinking.

The Pew Study also found that Republicans were more likely to have a negative view about the future of education and were less likely to believe in ongoing global warming. Maybe if they cared a little bit more about supporting the education we already have, they would better understand concepts that are not really up for debate in the world of science.

I would love to see critical thinking skills and scientific literacy taking a higher priority in education, but in the meantime, I’m at least optimistic to see some great things are happening. It’s sad that our country is still so influenced by paranoia, but continuing to have the conversations is how we move forward.

Take a look through the studies to see some other interesting results.

Another counseling student is challenging a university’s graduate counseling program, suggesting that her personal beliefs against homosexuality should be exempted despite contradicting the teachings of the program.

This time, it’s Jennifer Keeton at Augusta State University, and AFA and the ADF are not pleased!

“It’s in essence [telling her] ‘you do not have the correct beliefs, we are going to re-educate you into the correct beliefs,’” explains David French, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund. “And unless she completes this — quote — ‘remediation plan’ to their satisfaction, then she can be thrown out of [the school's counseling program].”

That’s exactly right.

This is religious privilege in its purest form, folks. The university teaches one idea. Keeton holds another. The two are in conflict. If Keeton wants the university degree, she has to learn why the university’s is right and hers is wrong. It just so happens that hers is religious, so suddenly she gets a free ride? No.

This OneNewsNow story is rife with spin. The program wanted Keeton to go to a pride parade and then reflect on what she saw. That’s a perfectly valid exercise, one—I might add—I did in my own counseling class! In order to be good practitioners, we folks in the social sciences have to reflect on our own perspectives in order to better appreciate and nurture the folks we work with. THAT’S HOW IT WORKS.

“Jennifer is not interested in being indoctrinated, she wants to be educated,” states the attorney. “She wants to learn about the counseling profession, she wants to be a good counselor — but being a good counselor does not require that one surrender their most fundamental religious beliefs.”

Well, let’s see… if she did not abandon her beliefs, she’d be a bad counselor. So, yeah, actually, it does.

She’s already been indoctrinated. Now she needs to be educated. There’s something seriously wrong with people who want to be taken seriously in the academy but don’t want to be exposed to new knowledge.

Given the precedent set by Julea Ward’s suit in Michigan, I doubt Keeton will get very far. Still, I’m sure the religious right will hem and haw about what a big deal this is, because they don’t care about the integrity of knowledge, intellect, or the academy.

One of these days, university folks are going to realize the importance of being proactive instead of just playing defense to all this stupid religious nonsense.

…

Oh, and by the way, if you want to “take action,” the AFA suggests you pray for Jennifer and the ADF staff, give a donation for her legal efforts, and email President Willian Bloodworth and the Georgia Board of Regents. I suggest you email the President yourself and encourage him not to submit to the foolishness of religious privilege.

Have you heard the tale of Julea Ward? She was working on her master’s in counseling at Eastern Michigan University. When she refused on religious grounds to affirm a client’s same-sex behavior (and thus counsel him at all), she was asked to leave the program.

Today, a federal judge dismissed her lawsuit against the university:

In an order granting summary judgment to the university on Monday, Judge George Caram Steeh of the U.S. District Court in Detroit held that the university’s requirement that the student be willing to serve people who are homosexual was reasonable, and did not amount to an infringement of the Christian student’s constitutional rights to free speech and free expression of religion.

The university “had a right and duty to enforce compliance” with professional ethics rules barring counselors from being intolerant or engaging in discrimination, and no reasonable person could conclude that a counseling program’s requirement that students comply with such rules “conveys a message endorsing or disapproving of religion,” Judge Steeh wrote.

This is an important victory for the LGBT community as well as the social sciences. It’s affirmation that our professional ethics are important and that we will not cater to those who think their religious beliefs are more important than a client’s health and well being.

The good ol’ Alliance Defense Fund, of course, is eager to disagree:

“Christian students shouldn’t be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs,” said David French, a senior counsel for the group, which helped out in a similar lawsuit filed against Augusta State University, in Georgia, this month.

Maybe not, but any student who rejects the teaching and training of a curriculum does not deserve to graduate from it, religious beliefs be damned.

The Chronicle article outlines well the ways that Ward violated the professional ethics she was supposed to be learning:

To maintain accreditation through the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, the program that Ms. Ward was in is required to familiarize its students with the ethics codes set forth by the American Counseling Association and the American School Counselor Association. In refusing to affirm the homosexual behavior of clients, Ms. Ward was accused of violating various provisions of the groups’ ethics codes, including prohibitions against discrimination based on sexual orientation and an American Counseling Association rule holding that its members should not demonstrate “an inability to tolerate different points of view.”

The Alliance Defense Fund paints a rosier picture of Ward’s experiences, including a pity party that she had to face a faculty panel “alone, without family, friends, or legal support.” Welcome to the real world, dear.

The ruling said, “Her refusal to attempt learning to counsel all clients within their own value systems is a failure to complete an academic requirement of the program.”

Case closed. Personal religious beliefs don’t trump academic requirements nor professional standards.

Why do I suspect that Ward is now just going to go to Liberty and get a “counseling” degree there that has NARTH’s stamp of approval?

If you want a little more propaganda in your life, here’s an ADF video about Julea and the tough way she was treated. Have a tissue handy—the soft focus will irritate your eyes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zsfcqKlL5s

Are you ready? Here are just the first two sentences of Mike Adams’ piece, “An Immodest Proposal” over at conservative site, Townhall:

I can’t stand atheists. And I plan to do something about them.

Let’s take this construction and see how it might be applied to other nouns. If you can’t stand mosquitos, maybe you’ll light some citronella candles. If you can’t stand cigarettes, maybe you’ll work to pass legislation to keep them out of public venues. If you can’t stand Jews, maybe you’ll embark upon some historic genocide. The threatening potential here is of concern, and as absurd as the rest of Adams’ piece is, this is the lens we have to keep in mind.

Now, surely you remember that Supreme Court decision last week, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez? It came up enough here on the blog. A Christian student group was paranoid that it would be infiltrated by gays and was insistent that it be allowed to discriminate so that no one could come in and try to change their hateful condemnations of groups of people. There was no precedent for this fear (there never is), but that didn’t stop them from raising a ruckus.

Well, Mike Adams wants to use the freedom of this decision to attack atheist student groups and create that very precedent of student group takeover. Like a good American, when Adams gets the slightest bit concerned that he can’t defend himself to his own absurd liking, he attacks with a preemptive strike:

So, when I get back to the secular university in August, I plan to round up the students I know who are most hostile to atheism. Then I’m going to get them to help me find atheist-haters willing to join atheist student groups across the South. I plan to use my young fundamentalist Christian warriors to undermine the mission of every group that disagrees with me on the existence of God.

Let’s be very clear, here: Mike Adams is encouraging hostility and hate against atheists.

Now, you might say, “But Zack, he’s clearly trying to channel Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal! This is just satire!”

Except, there was not already a context for rich people eating babies. (There is a context of atheists eating babies, which is a neat little literary overlap, I suppose.) But there is definitely a context of hostility towards atheists, so there is no element of absurdity. Perhaps Mike Adams just sucks at satire, which is possible, but I think it’s very hard to read this piece as satire at all. I’m sure there are many who haven’t, especially on a site like Townhall. The comments confirm this.

Even if Mike Adams is trying (and failing) to be satirical, his language is reckless:

If I see any words like “atheist,” agnostic”, or even “free-thinker” I will know they are a group of godless heathens. Then we’ll move in for the kill.

The kill, eh?

In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito observed that the Martinez majority has provided public universities with “a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups.” Alito is right as usual. After we get rid of the heathens we’ll turn our weapon on the gays, the blacks, and the feminists. We might even go after the Italians, too.

Hilarious.

Author Craig A. James (The Religion Virus), blogger Daniel Fincke (who was cool enough to link here), and I all agree:

Bring it on.

As James points out, atheist groups would love to have Christians at their meetings!

But here’s the truth: crybaby Mike Adams won’t dare do this. You see, I happen to know Hemant Mehta over at The Friendly Atheist, and Hemant is reasonable, conciliatory, smart, and he happens to be the Chair of the Board of the Secular Student Alliance. I’d be willing to bet that if Mike Adam’s Christian students start attending the Secular Student Alliance meetings, Hemant and friends would welcome the opportunity to talk to them. In fact, I’ll bet they’d organize a national campaign to welcome these Christians into their group!

James’ entire response is brilliant, and I agree this plan would totally backfire for Mike Adams, but I wonder if it hasn’t already.

Adams, apparently an ex-atheist, proudly describes himself as “vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia.” If you look through his columns, you’ll see an incredible list of petty taunts and attacks at all kinds of diversity outreach, including cultural centers, student groups, and any administrator or professor who stands up for diversity. His racism, sexism, and heterosexism are never sugar-coated. This man strives to maintain privilege and loves it.

I’m glad I’m smarter than this man. I’m glad that I support open inclusion and accessibility for education. I’m glad that I respect even the people whose ideas I have no respect for at all. I’m glad that I understand identity development and the incredible value of creating inclusive campus environments.

Mike Adams is a hate-monger. Unabashedly. Nothing strengthens the atheist message better than having unChristian vitriol like this to quote (hence this very post). If he didn’t have archives full of similarly hateful shit, I’d wonder if this is a Poe. But it’s not a Poe, it’s just dumb.

Good luck, Mike. We’ll see what kind of “warriors” your young Christians are when they actually get to listen to the ideas folks like you work so hard to shelter them from.

My article today on The Cronk of Higher Education explores how things might have been different. Here’s a preview:

In a groundbreaking decision this week, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that nondiscrimination policies at American public universities are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision for a case named Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the court ruled in favor of the Christian student group, arguing that Hastings College of Law was violating students’ freedom of expression when it refused to recognize the group for its discrimination against “gay” and non-Christian students.

…

Yeah, that’s right. I used mocking quotes for “gay.”

The funny part about this satirical article is how little I had to invent.

Check it out for yourself over at the Cronk.

(Click here to see past articles I’ve written for the Cronk.)

Here’s a brief recap of the situation: The University of California has a nondiscrimination policy. If you want to be recognized as a student group (i.e. use the university’s name, access funding for student groups, reserve campus spaces, etc.), you must abide by the nondiscrimination policy. The Christian Legal Society at Hastings College of Law wanted to be recognized as a student group but still be allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation (because they’re holier than us gays). The college said no, the group sued, and here we are today.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the university (read the decision in PDF here, news links below). Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsberg argues that “the Christian group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college’s nondiscrimination policy.” After all, the group could still exist and meet on campus, just not enjoy the privileges of being a recognized group.

The decision points out that “Hastings’ all-comers policy is viewpoint neutral” (p. 5), meaning that it does not target religious groups. It requires “that all student groups accept all comers.” Keep in mind that this applies to whether a student can “participate, become a member, or seek leadership positions in the organization.” CLS (in all its chapters throughout the country) requires that members and officers sign a “Statement of Faith,” which of course includes that “sexual activity should not occur outside of marriage between a man and a woman,” so that the group can automatically deny membership to anyone who engages in homosexual conduct. They don’t want us gays taking over their group.

As I wrote in my original post, it’s important to remember that the privileges enjoyed by “Registered Student Organizations” (RSOs) are funded by students. On most campuses there is an activity fee, as was the case at Hastings. So CLS was demanding that they be able to use money supplied by all students to conduct an organization not open to all students. It seems to me they are a pretty insecure group if they are really worried they’ll be infiltrated. (Note: “CLS points to no history or prospect of RSO-hijackings at Hastings” (p.32).)

Highlights from the majority opinion

I love this line from the majority opinion (pp. 17-18):

We reject CLS’s unseemly attempt to escape from the stipulation and shift its target to Hastings’ policy as written. This opinion,therefore, considers only whether conditioning access to a student-organization forum on compliance with an all-comers policy violates the Constitution.

That sounds kind of obvious, but not when you see what Justice Alito wrote in the dissent. We’ll get to that in a moment.

As a student affairs professional, I appreciated this line (p. 26):

A college’s commission—and its concomitant license to choose among pedagogical approaches—is not confined to the classroom, for extracurricular programs are, today, essential parts of the educational process.

This hypothetical helps explain the complexity of the university’s dilemma:

How should the Law School go about determining whether a student organization cloaked prohibited status exclusion in belief-based garb? If a hypothetical Male-Superiority Club barred a female student from running for its presidency, for example, how could the Law School tell whether the group rejected her bid because of her sex or because, by seeking to lead the club, she manifested a lack of belief in its fundamental philosophy?

This is important, because the decision here relies upon Lawrence v. Texas, which stated that by criminalizing homosexual conduct, it “is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination” (p. 29). Using behavior to discriminate using sexual orientation is exactly what CLS was trying to do.

The decision also reminds us that technology is changing the way groups function on our campuses (p. 30):

Although CLS could not take advantage of RSO-specific methods of communication. . .the advent of electronic media and social-networking sites reduces the importance of those channels.

And in conclusion:

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the all-comers policy is constitutional and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Highlights from Justice Stevens’ concurring opinion

Justice Stevens wrote a concurring opinion defending nondiscrimination policies (p. 39). He points out that CLS’s reasoning that the nondiscrimination policy in fact discriminates based on religion is counterintuitive and unsound (p. 40):

Although the First Amendment may protect CLS’s discriminatory practices off campus, it does not require a public university to validate or support them.

He goes on to point out (pp. 40-41):

Regardless of whether they are the product of secular or spiritual feeling, hateful or benign motives, all acts of religious discrimination are equally covered. The discriminator’s beliefs are simply irrelevant.

As someone committed to the learning environment of universities, I appreciate Justice Stevens’ words about what we should be able to expect from higher education (p. 43):

The campus is, in fact, a world apart from the public square in numerous respects, and religious organizations, as well as all other organizations, must abide by certain norms of conduct when they enter an academic community. Public universities serve a distinctive role in a modern democratic society. Like all specialized government entities, they must make countless decisions about how to allocate resources in pursuit of their role. Some of those decisions will be controversial; many will have differential effects across populations; virtually all will entail value judgments of some kind. As a general matter, courts should respect universities’ judgments and let them manage their own affairs.

Highlights from Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion

In another concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy condemns the use of loyalty oaths (p. 48):

The school’s objectives thus might not be well served if, as a condition to membership or participation in a group, students were required to avow particular personal beliefs or to disclose private, off-campus behavior. Students whose views are in the minority at the school would likely fare worse in that regime. Indeed, were those sorts of requirements to become prevalent, it might undermine the principle that in a university community—and in a law school community specifically—speech is deemed persuasive based on its substance, not the identity of the speaker. The era of loyalty oaths is behind us.

Highlights from the dissent

In their dissent, Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts seem to contend that free speech includes an assumption of endorsement. The opening paragraph reveals this bizarre assumption (p. 49, annotations omitted):

The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.” Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.

Really? There is no freedom for expression when not endorsed by a university?

In fact, the dissent seems pissed and implies that nondiscrimination policies are “a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups” (p. 50). Did they pay attention? That’s not what the policies do.

I’m a bit confused as I read the dissent, because it attempts to distinguish between “not discriminating” and “accepting all comers.” I don’t understand the difference between these two (at least in regards to this case), but apparently it matters (pp. 53-54) that Hastings did not use the latter interpretation of the policy at first. From p. 55:

Hastings’ effort to portray the accept-all-comers policy as merely an interpretation of the Nondiscrimination Policy runs into obvious difficulties. First, the two policies are simply not the same: The Nondiscrimination Policy proscribes discrimination on a limited number of specified grounds, while the accept-all-comers policy outlaws all selectivity. Second, the Nondiscrimination Policy applies to everything that Hastings does, and the law school does not follow an accept-all-comers policy in activities such as admitting students and hiring faculty.

Does it matter? Regardless of the interpretation, the CLS was in violation of the policy.

The dissent points out other student groups with “requirements” for membership, but none that amount to a signed statement. They refer more to expectation of mindset, not requirement of action.

The Director of Student Services, Judy Hansen Chapman, seems to very much be on target for executing her responsibilities of informing the group their bylaws violated the policy. She also is apparently responsible for tardy responses when CLS, as a group then not recognized as an RSO, tried to reserve spaces for events and speakers. Alito paints a picture of sympathy for CLS (p. 60):

And since one of CLS’s principal claims is that it was subjected to discrimination based on its viewpoint, the majority’s emphasis on CLS’s ability to endure that discrimination—by using private facilities and means of communication—is quite amazing.

That’s right. The dissent argues that CLS was discriminated against.

Ignoring the distinction of the act of signing a statement of faith, Alito condemns Hastings for viewpoint discrimination, because apparently “CLS was required to admit avowed atheists” (p. 68). Really? They were required to admit? There were atheists demanding to join the Christian Legal Society? That seems a bit delusional, Justice Alito, even for you. And furthermore, why shouldn’t atheists be allowed to join the Christian Legal Society if they want to? Surely, an avowed atheist might have much to learn by participating in a group like CLS, even if they disagree with any of the group’s beliefs.

It kind of makes me think of all those Catholics who are okay with gays, okay with birth control, okay with abortions, etc. By continuing to participate in the Catholic Church, would Justice Alito suggest that they are, in fact, infringing on the Catholic Church’s right to exclude?

Dare I say it, the dissent seems to argue for special privileges for religious groups, suggesting that religious groups should be allowed to discriminate based on beliefs while it’s okay if other groups don’t (p. 70, annotations omitted):

It bears emphasis that permitting religious groups to limit membership to those who share the groups’ beliefs would not have the effect of allowing other groups to discriminate on the basis of religion. It would not mean, for example, that fraternities or sororities could exclude students on that basis. As our cases have recognized, the right of expressive association permits a group to exclude an applicant for membership only if the admission of that person would “affec[t] in a significant way the group’s ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.” Groups that do not engage in expressive association have no such right. Similarly, groups that are dedicated to expressing a viewpoint on a secular topic (for example, a political or ideological viewpoint) would have no basis for limiting membership based on religion because the presence of members with diverse religious beliefs would have no effect on the group’s ability to express its views. But for religious groups, the situation is very different. This point was put well by a coalition of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Sikh groups: “Of course there is a strong interest in prohibiting religious discrimination where religion is irrelevant. But it is fundamentally confused to apply a rule against religious discrimination to a religious association.”

The dissent does not specify whether the justices would support other forms of discrimination. An example referred to throughout the decisions is a Democratic group admitting Republicans. Surely, Republicans would “affect in a significant way the group’s ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.” This seems to be a blatant attempt at reinforcing religious privilege, and it is not surprising coming from these justices.

Alito also quite casually ignores the precedent of Lawrence v. Texas by suggesting that CLS’s discrimination against homosexual students just reflects a viewpoint on sexual morality.

I really struggle to read the dissent, as it ignores the unique environment (and constituency) of a college campus, as well as any notion of student rights within such an environment. It goes on to suggest that the standard set forth by this decision would allow public universities to “impose” religious requirements “on students who wish to participate in a forum that is designed to foster the expression of diverse viewpoints” (p. 75), again ignoring the original issue that it was CLS that imposed a religious test, not Hastings.

Regretfully, the dissent ends with this platitude for subversiveness (p. 85, annotations omitted):

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today’s decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country. Our First Amendment reflects a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Even if the United States is the only Nation that shares this commitment to the same extent, I would not change our law to conform to the international norm. I fear that the Court’s decision marks a turn in that direction. Even those who find CLS’s views objectionable should be concerned about the way the group has been treated—by Hastings, the Court of Appeals, and now this Court. I can only hope that this decision will turn out to be an aberration.

Awww, poor Christian Legal Society. They weren’t allowed to use public funds to discriminate. How sad for our country.

If you’ve read my whole post thus far but still want other perspectives on the case, check out AP, Inside Higher Ed, The Advocate, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Despite the disappointing language in the dissent, I’m quite proud of our Supreme Court for today’s decision. It ensures that higher education continues to be an open place for all people to exchange their ideas.

Gherkin College has always prided itself on its tradition of academic integrity, but this week the campus is divided over the enforcement of a long-forgotten academic policy still on the books.

In late 2008, Assistant Professor Jeffrey Rover in the Food Sciences department found substantial evidence that his colleague, Professor Siobhan Hendrix, had plagiarized recipes for her latest best-seller, Snacking with Science, paid off critics and researchers alike for positive reviews, and required the students in all her classes to purchase the book. After first learning of her dubious behavior, Rover spent months acquiring incriminating emails, photos, and testimony out of concern for the integrity of his department.

However, when Rover presented his report of Hendrix’s wrongdoings this past April to his dean, he was shocked by the consequences he faced. In a move that resembled a recent case at the University of Michigan, Dean Howard Cochley of the School of Human Sciences ignored the report, indefinitely suspended Rover from his teaching duties, and convened the college’s Tattle-Tale Task Force for the first time in over six decades, inviting Hendrix, the accused, to chair.

Read the rest over at The Cronk.

Rumors have long circulated that social justice educator and higher education guru Vernon Wall is actually famed drag persona and actor RuPaul. New evidence has emerged recently showing credible evidence that not only are the rumors true, but the two personas seem to be merging.

Jess Brubaker, a graduate assistant in Bartlet University’s Center for Student Diversity, said she was incredibly inspired by Wall’s recent social justice workshop.

“He was talking about equity and shoes that fit and it just made so much sense!” That was, at least, until Wall ended the presentation by saying, “And remember, don’t f**k it up!”

…

Please check out the Cronk’s page to read the rest!

Also, find out what you missed on this season of Rupaul’s Drag Race on Logo’s website!

Here are some pictures to go with it!

Unfortunately, we know nothing about the atheist coming out process. While there have been decades of research on coming out, it has all focused on sexual orientation and gender identity. And while there have been decades of research on spiritual identity development, all such studies continue to be biased toward belief in a higher power with almost none paying any heed to the unique experience of atheists.

One of my professional/life goals is to help fill this deficit of research so that nonbelievers can be better understood in the context of a society that privileges religion. In the absence of the resources to conduct such studies presently, I will instead look back at my own experience as a case study.

When I tell my coming out story (the atheist one), there is a significant milestone. Like coming out as gay, I think coming out as an atheist involves a connecting of past experiences, a revelation of how past inklings and actions demonstrate that one has been on the path to identifying as an atheist for quite some time. The significant milestone I reference in my story is my college admissions essay, which I finished in January, 2003. I was 17, I was participating in Bible youth groups weekly, and it would be another year and a half before I acknowledged I was gay.

I remember being frustrated with this essay. I had a lot to say and not a lot of space in which to say it. The essay got edited a lot. Ultimately, it had to be cut in half. One of the schools I was applying to (Ithaca College, the one I ended up going to) had a max word length of 350 words. I used every single one of them.

At this point, I think I’ll let the essay speak for itself. You will be surprised by what I had to say seven years ago. The prompt was: Please select a topic of personal interest and explain its importance to you.

Having been born into a family of devout Catholics, heavy religious devotion is always knocking at my door.  However, I choose not to answer it.  My case differs slightly from the families of my mother’s eleven siblings.  My parents adopted me at birth after extensive attempts to bear a biological child, some involving medical procedures that the church shunned.

Ignoring the pressure from her family, my mother chose not to raise me in the church.  I was still baptized Catholic, but I never attended more than three Masses a year.  Forever shall I appreciate the prudent way she instilled upon me many of the church’s strong morals and a strong belief in God without smothering me in the prayers, rituals, and long church services.

My academic upbringing led to a great inner debate that continues to this day.  I don’t doubt that God exists, but I question it constantly.  I know there’s got to be something out there, but there are just so many conflicts between the Bible and the world of science.

In addition, almost every conflict in the world’s history has stemmed from dissension among religions, whether it was the Crusades, 9-11 and the Middle East struggle, or even political wars like the American Civil War.

Regardless, I live my life for Him.  I dedicate myself to others through friendship and volunteering and I try never to give less than 100%.  I also believe in abstinence until marriage and I plan never to voluntarily consume or use tobacco, drugs, or alcohol, having lost both my grandfathers to their destructive natures.

As an additional pursuit of music, I play the organ for a local church.  Every week, I overhear Sunday School classes that discuss generalizations in accordance with the strong conservativeness that abounds in my rural community.  Often I want to interrupt and argue, but I restrain myself.  Many churches tend to confine the scope of their congregations’ perspectives of life.

The Constitution grants us not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.  If I can be raised well without intense church attendance, maybe others can too.

Not the Zack Ford you might be used to reading here on the blog.

The abstinence claim was an easy way to closet myself without realizing it. I did eventually start drinking, but I’m still conservative about it. After I left that summer, I never again set foot in the church that had employed me and celebrated my musicianship. Friendship and volunteering are no less important to me today.

But look at some of that language I used!

Forever shall I appreciate the prudent way she instilled upon me many of the church’s strong morals and a strong belief in God without smothering me in the prayers, rituals, and long church services.

That’s right. At one point in my life, I gave the Catholic Church credit for morality. It makes me nauseous to think about now.

I also appreciated that I’d been taught to believe in God. I no longer maintain that sentiment.

I don’t doubt that God exists, but I question it constantly.  I know there’s got to be something out there, but there are just so many conflicts between the Bible and the world of science.

I did not doubt God. At the time, I drew a distinction between religion and beliefs. It was organized religion I despised, not the idea of God. I truly believed God could exist and be worshiped in the absence of organized religion. Religion was the problem, not God. And yet, even then, I knew that there were conflicts between what God was supposed to be and what actually could be. But, for me, my questions were about God; I was not questioning of God.

Regardless, I live my life for Him.

Wow. It still blows my mind that I’d say that. It scares me to think that despite my questions, I had that sense of devotion. I am sure that the inevitable Ford Model of Atheist Identity Development will lend itself to such a phase—a separation from the structure but not the beliefs. That was how I’d explain it: I have my own relationship with Jesus.

My religious identity went pretty latent after that. My coming out as gay journey took over, with its own implications for my worldview, and it wasn’t until really the Fall of 2007 that I started to seriously question again—to seriously think about how I identified. I had already adopted an agnostic point of view with a desire to simply stay away from religious thinking entirely. Everybody else thought it important, so yeah sure, “I believe in God,” but the words meant nothing to me. I started identifying as a Pastafarian, because from a political point of view I thought the FSM was hilarious and brilliant, and I asked for The God Delusion for Christmas (I’ll always laugh about that).

I was a surefire atheist before I’d even gotten halfway through Dawkins’ masterpiece.

How strange to now look back and see how much my thinking has changed. I now call “God” a delusion, a projection only within a person’s own imagination. I say I don’t respect beliefs at all, calling them unfounded ideas without intellectual merit. I chastise the mere idea that morals come from religion, pointing out that religion unfairly claimed moral reasoning as its own to falsely inflate its importance. I no longer abstractly give thanks, but if there is one thing I appreciate in my life, it is the fact that my thinking progressed beyond devotion to invisible deities. I life my life for me and for the people of the world. That, I think, is the most admirable form of devotion I can offer.

Surely, there are more stories to be told. Surely, there is a model for identity development waiting to be formulated so that we can better appreciate and support atheists who are struggling to come out.

But, I guess we first have to recognize that being an atheist isn’t a bad thing. We’ve got a ways to go.

We’re just about at the one-year anniversary of my job search (a.k.a. the completion of my Master’s degree). I sure didn’t expect then that a year later I’d still be looking, but who could’ve? The economy has gone through some tough times and is recovering slowly and there is nothing I, nor any of my colleagues, can do about it. Knowing how many other talented young professionals out there are still waiting for their own chance to get their foot in the door has been my comfort for the past year. (Just like being an atheist, it’s kind of comforting to know that “It is what it is.”)

The job search has had its ups and its downs, but has been reasonably tolerable. I’ve kept myself busy and engaged, I’m healthier and in better shape than I’ve probably ever been, and I’m still hopeful and confident—most days. Some days, I’m eager to write about the job search, but not for good reason, and so I restrain myself. While there has been no evidence to suggest that my blog has been a negative when it comes to my search, I certainly don’t want to develop a reputation for being a petulant child or an unprofessional candidate. Nevertheless, I know that I’m not the only person who has felt not only impatient, but in fact disrespected by various search processes.

Since I’m not in a generally good mood today, I think it’s safe to share a few gems from my experiences to laugh at how ridiculous this process can be. It’s easy to get pissed by a lot of things that happen, but I think it’s important to be able to laugh at them too and keep your head held high. So, here are some little stories from past searches, and then below them I’ll share some insights on the job market from what I’ve heard this week.

The first story comes from a large, well-known public university. I don’t want to identify it, but I will point out that this particular search did not ask for a cover letter. Here is the only message I received, which came from the office that houses the position I applied for:

Dear Zack,

Thank you for your interest in the _____ position at _______ and for your impressive application.  After considering all of the applications you were one of our top candidates. Unfortunately, at this time, we are not extending an interview to you . We wish you the best of luck in your job search.

Sincerely,
__________

Wait, what? I was so dumbfounded when I got this email back in August that I had no idea how to reply. I don’t actually know what happened with this position. It might not have even been filled. All I know is they loved me, but I got no interview. I remember feeling pretty insulted by the email at the time, but now it’s just kind of funny.

The second story comes from a job search where I actually had gotten a little further along in the process. This position was at a fairly prestigious private liberal arts school, essentially the opposite of the previous example. Here was the email I got in December:

Dear Zack,

Thank you for your  interest in our position.  We had an extremely competitive candidate pool for the _______ position, and we have pursued another candidate for our opening. Thank you for taking the time to come to _______ to meet our search committee. The committee enjoyed meeting you and our discussions.

We wish you success with your job search and in the future. Thank you for your interest in our organization.

Sincerely,
_______

Sounds like a standard rejection email, right?

Well, here was the reply I sent:

Hi _______!

In case you are sending this email to other candidates, I wanted to alert you to the fact I never came to _______ or met the search committee. This is the first I’ve heard from you since my phone interview.

Thanks for letting me know.

–Zack

I got no further reply, let alone apology. Did I cross a professional line with my reply? Maybe, but it had been two months since my phone interview and I found this situation pretty insulting. Besides, the goal of my reply was to make sure other candidates didn’t get a similarly insulting email. (To their credit, at least they informed me of the resolution of the search.)

Again, now I can look back and laugh. You almost have to.

This week, I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz. Unfortunately, it started off with a round of bad news: two rejections on Monday. It’s hard to really get mad about these rejections. I know that there are about 150-200 applying for the same jobs I’m applying for, and I’m only a new professional! It’s just a tough market.

One of my rejections this week was upsetting though. Here’s the email exchange I had with the search chair at another small private school. My emails are in green:

(Feb. 24)

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for applying for the ______ position at ______.  Your resume indicates that you may be a good fit for our position.  I’m writing to inquire if you will be at the ACPA National Conference at the end of March.  I will be interviewing candidates for the position at the conference and would like to schedule time to meet with you.

If you could please respond either way with your availability at ACPA (or not), your candidate number and whether you are still interested in pursuing our opening, I would appreciate it.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
_______

(Feb. 24)

Hello!

Unfortunately, I had to make the decision that it is not economically feasible for me to attend the ACPA National Conference this year. I am definitely still interested in pursuing this opening and hope we can find another amenable way to connect.

Thanks!

–Zack Ford

(Feb. 25)

Hi Zack,

Thank you for your prompt response.  Our process will not move forward until mid to late March.  I will keep you updates as we progress.

Thank you,
________

(Mar. 29)

Hello!

I just wanted to follow up to see if there will still be an opportunity to interview for the ______ position. My understanding was that my candidacy was not solely dependent on my availability at the ACPA conference, which I could not afford to attend this past month. As I am still quite interested in the position, I would appreciate an update on the progress of the search.

Much thanks,

Zack Ford

(Mar. 31)

Zack,

At this point we are reviewing the resumes of all candidates to determine on campus interviews.

If the committee decides to proceed with your candidacy you will receive notification within the next two weeks.

I appreciate your interest in our position.

Sincerely,
________

And then I got my rejection letter Monday. In other words, they wanted to interview me, but only enough to interview me at ACPA and not enough to have a phone conversation. That’s their right, of course, and I’m sure they’re not the only school who depends solely on placement conferences, but it just seems a bit exclusionary. Still, I have to be able to just laugh. Did I get hosed? Maybe. Life goes on.

Today I got two phone calls, each of which I think says something interesting about the job market, but both demonstrating that it’s still an employer’s market. The positions are competitive, so the employers can be picky.

The first call was an inquiry as to the extent of my experience. How much was full time? How much was part time? There wasn’t a whole lot to say, though I appreciate them giving me the chance to clarify. The gentleman I spoke with was kind and understanding that many of the experiences on my résumé do not really speak to those kinds of cookie-cutter measurements. Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder if the end result of the phone call was that I was ruled out as a candidate for not meeting blanket standards for previous “experience”. They certainly have every right to do that and I can’t entirely blame them for doing so either, but it makes me think that it’s one less open door to get my foot into.

The other call I got, in regards to a different position, was an inquiry into my salary expectations/requirements. Again, this would be a way for the school to pick and choose from the candidates, but this time the process might work in my favor. I made it clear that, as an entry-level professional, I don’t really have requirements for my salary, and more importantly, the salary would not be a deciding factor in my consideration of the position. It’s the kind of work I want to be doing, and that’s why I’m interested. In this scenario, I might benefit from my “lack” of professional experience.

And so after feeling kind of down about how things were going, I’m again energized knowing that searches are moving along and that I’m actually being considered as a candidate. A year of job searching means I have a year of experience job searching. And while some days I feel like I’m waiting for Godot, I still very much see employment in my field of choice as a real possibility.

Last weekend I visited my alma mater, Ithaca College and enjoyed three days packed of visiting old friends and making new ones, plus incredible concerts by Ithacappella and the Ithaca College Chorus (plug: check out awesome new music from the amazing Nate Tao ’10). A lot has changed in the three years since I last called myself a student there, both in terms of who is there and even how the campus looks. Nonetheless, my joyous weekend was defined by how little had changed.

In terms of people I saw that I knew, it was as if no time had passed (similar to my reunion experience at New Year’s). Even though I was seeing many beloved friends and colleagues for the first time in three years, the rapport and camaraderie hadn’t missed a beat. While this speaks to the quality of these friendships, I think it also speaks to how Ithaca College has shaped who we are as student, staff, or faculty.

This was only reinforced by the new connections I made. Whether it was fellow alumni I was meeting for the first time or current students playing frisbee on the Campus Center quad, there was an assumed quality and respect inherent in these new connections. There was an openness—a social integrity—that can only be explained by the one similarity we shared: a connection to Ithaca College.

I’m not writing these thoughts just to brag about how much I love IC, but I think they speak to the way a university is a living entity itself. In student affairs, we spend a lot of time (and money) assessing campus climate and working to improve various social aspects, but ultimately, there is a synergistic identity that can’t always be concretely measured.

When I juxtapose Ithaca (a small private liberal arts school) with Iowa State University (a large public land-grant school), I see difference in how this university identity manifests. At Ithaca, there was always a concern that there were not enough traditions. Committees regular discussed a “core experience,” often with concern that alumni would not feel connected to any campus-wide experiences between Convocation and Commencement. Iowa State, on the other hand, has plenty of traditions, from mass campaniling at Homecoming to VEISHEA. The concern there seemed to be more about how to keep students participating in the greater culture between these big events.

I think the way these two universities are pulling in opposite directions reflects challenges of institution size and culture. While Ithaca is small enough that students can cloister in their respective schools, Iowa State is large enough and so spread out that the university struggles to maintain a coherent social identity.

What I think makes Ithaca unique is a consistent, albeit difficult to define, attitude among members of the community. Honestly, the spirit that members of the Ithaca community bring to the college seems to translate to an expectation for all new others. I don’t want this post to sound like an academic paper on campus environments any more than it already is, but as someone who has experienced the distinction, I think it is worthwhile to share my observations.

I am doubtful that I could approach a stranger at ISU with the same assumed rapport as I could at IC. This doesn’t mean one is a bad place and the other good, but it speaks to the experience people have from the moment they set foot on a campus to their last memory of it. This amorphous university identity affects recruitment, retention, and fundraising, but in so many ways, it isn’t measurable. It depends on a community to define over time and to reinforce at every opportunity.

There has been a running discussion on the Iowa State LinkedIn group started by an alum who wanted to get her daughter fired up about ISU. I was really disturbed that everyone just started shouting things to humor the premise, but no one seemed to care that the premise ought to be challenged. Only the future student herself can decide if Iowa State is the place she wants to be.

I knew Ithaca College was the place I wanted to be from the day I auditioned, but for no other reason than that a current student (who had no official capacity that day as a representative of the college), Greg, went out of his way to make me feel welcomed and comfortable there. No facility, tradition, or reputation can replicate that sense of inclusion. It is an aspect of the culture of a university that can only be experienced first-hand.

This past weekend was my first visit to IC in a full year, and my very first experience when I arrived back on campus was chatting with a prospective student. I passed on my love of the university in the same way that Greg passed his on to me. I couldn’t not; it’s just part of the experience of belonging to Ithaca College to make people feel welcome and connected.

How have you made your campus more inclusive lately? What have you done to help make your campus the kind of place that people want to come back to over and over again? What makes your university feel like “home” for students, staff, and faculty?

I trust Ithaca College will always be a place I call home and its community my family, no matter how much time passes nor how much the campus changes.

There is a wonderful commentary on Inside Higher Ed today that you absolutely should read. John K. Wilson, founder of CollegeFreedom.org, explains why anti-discrimination policies actually help protect groups like the Christian Legal Society.

I also invite you to revisit my commentary on the issue from December, when we first learned the Supreme Court would hear the case. I make the argument from a students’ right point of view, that a group using students funds and student-funded facilities must be open to all students.

There isn’t much more to say today, but I do have an important question to ask: Where are ACPA and NASPA on this issue?

As two groups built upon a celebration of diversity and who represent the very professionals who promote and maintain inclusive climates on campuses, I find it bizarre that they haven’t spoken out. I think we should expect better from our professional organizations.

I do (even though nobody else is talking about his anti-atheist language, except PZ of course).

Well, apparently, he wasn’t very happy with what was printed in that The Perspective article (The Perspective being a student-run newsmagazine at The College of New Jersey), and now he’s trying to play a different tune. He said in response:

The young college student hopefully will find a career other than journalism. I would ask that he release the unedited tape of our conversation. I believe that what people do as individuals in their private lives is their business, but I do not believe we should change the traditional definition of marriage. Not only did he attempt to sensationalize my well known and hardly unusual views of same-sex marriage, he also inaccurately reported my views on Michael Steele as GOP chairman – I offered my support and didn’t “Rip into Steele” as his article asserted. I had a candid and frank conversation with the group about health care, education, the economy and national security while the young journalism student, instead, chose to focus on the issue of same-sex marriage and grossly distort my views.

In other words, these college students suck and I’m not as mean as you’re making me look.

What a tool. I know calling Mike Huckabee a tool on my blog is not the most mature analysis, but that’s pretty much what he is, and someone needs to say it.

The Perspective has done a marvelous job of rising above:

It is unfortunate that in the wake of his interview with The Perspective, Gov. Mike Huckabee has resorted to ad hominem attacks intended to cast doubt upon our credibility as a publication. This sort of desperate tactic is not surprising, however; politicians in damage-control mode often stoop to attacking the media so they might avoid being accountable for the substance of their remarks.

It is telling that nowhere in his statement did Huckabee suggest he was misquoted in the article, and rightfully so; we have the audio and transcripts to prove that everything reported is accurate.

Huckabee’s problem seems to lie more in the focus of the article, which is centered partially on LGBT issues. We feel that same-sex marriage, laws prohibiting gays and lesbians from adopting children, and ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ are legitimate policy concerns about which to question national political figures. Gov. Huckabee may disagree.

But regardless, his words speak for themselves, and it is a shame that he is now so quickly embarrassed of them.

Further, Huckabee’s claim that he defended RNC Chairman Michael Steele is simply not true.

Have a listen. (Things are a bit out of order — in the interest of getting this out there, we had to improvise.)

If you can tell what was “grossly distorted,” please let us know.

M. C. Tracey
Editor-in-Chief

Way to call his bluff and respond maturely, TCNJ! You proudly represent college students and college journalists across the nation.

You’re more than welcome to listen to the interview, but if you find the sound of Huckabee’s folksy ignorance grating, take my word for it. He got nailed.

(Note: The following sentence is written correctly.) In Huckabee’s defense, the recording reveals that he did say that he didn’t say that atheists have no moral groundings, except for a few seconds before he said that when he talked about people who claim to be religious and “live as if they’re atheists, as if they have no moral groundings at all.” He’s not being forgiven for that one.

I have a lot of questions about this article on Inside Higher Ed. The article is about Bruce K. Waltke, an evangelical scholar (oxymoron?) of the Old Testament (nevermind) who was a professor (I guess) at Reformed Theological Seminary until he supported evolution in a recent lecture.

So first of all, does seminary really count as higher education? Technically it’s accredited, but it’s accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Does that count? Does an RTS Master’s in Christian Education have the same merit as my Master’s in Education? I’m insulted if it does. But let’s say the seminary does count as higher education: why is this issue worthy of this extensive article?

It seems to me, based on previous Inside Higher Ed articles I’ve critiqued, that the online news magazine is pretty firmly committed to religious apologetics. They quote spokespeople from the Templeton Foundation and consistently tout the work of the BioLogos Foundation, both of which are committed to showing the compatibility of science and religion. This might sound nice, but it’s impossible to do without catering to religion. The whole concept is a defense of religion in the face of science and to praise any work of these foundations is to praise religion. Heck, the Templeton Foundation essentially bribes journalists to get positive coverage!

If you believe that science and religion are compatible, then you’ll respect the work they do. But you have to believe it, which means you’re already taking religion’s side. There’s no objectivity to be seen in the matter, and thus very little actual science. The only scientists who would support such a compatibility are scientists who don’t want to give up their own religious beliefs—in other words, they’re either selfish and like the privilege they get from being believers—or they’re bad scientists who are too delusional to see the blatant incompatibility in their own learnings.

Let’s take a look at what Waltke said (at a BioLogos workshop) that got him in trouble with the seminary:

If the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult … some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.

The first sentence is awesome. Arguably all religions are cults, because they all “interact” with something higher or greater than the world. But that second sentence is the pits: “gifts” and “God’s Providence”? In other words, Waltke believes that everything we know, we know because God revealed it to us. Well wasn’t that nice of him to do for us!

It’s nonsense, and that’s the kind of nonsense BioLogos promotes and Inside Higher Ed buys into. Look at how they frame this:

On the one hand, his public endorsement of the view that believing in evolution and being a person of faith are not incompatible was significant for those who, like the BioLogos Foundation, support such a view. Waltke’s scholarly and religious credentials in Christian theology were too strong for him to be dismissed easily.

What?? How do Christian theology credentials apply to lecturing on biology?

And personally, I find it disturbing that Inside Higher Ed so easily humors this whole notion. It’s an insult to the real scholars and researchers who actually study and understand evolution—and who need not believe a thing to do so. What’s worse, they go on to talk about the seminary like it’s a real institution of higher education where academic freedom would apply!

But while Milton insisted that this provides for “a diversity” of views, he acknowledged that others are not permitted. Darwinian views, and any suggestion that humans didn’t arrive on earth directly from being created by God (as opposed to having evolved from other forms of life), are not allowed, he said, and faculty members know this.

Asked if this limits academic freedom, Milton said: “We are a confessional seminary. I’m a professor myself, but I do not have a freedom that would go past the boundaries of the confession. Nor do I have a freedom that would allow me to express my views in such a way to hurt or impugn someone who holds another view.” Indeed he added that the problem with what Waltke said was as much his suggestion that religion will lose support over these issues as his statements about evolution itself. (The statement of faith at the seminary states: “Since the Bible is absolutely and finally authoritative as the inerrant Word of God, it is the basis for the total curriculum.”)

When the institution specifies parameters for how you may think, there is no such thing as academic freedom. So why are we talking about it like it’s just another school? It’s ridiculous.

The article goes on to site two religious bloggers and a biologist who supports BioLogos. There isn’t one critical viewpoint in the entire piece.

It’s poor journalism and it hurts higher education to talk about these kinds of issues like they’re of legitimate concern. I pity Waltke, but not for being fired. I pity him for wasting his life studying mythology as if there were any substance to it whatsoever.