Kenneth Howell, a lecturer at the University of Illinois was fired for sending email to his class saying that “Homosexual Acts Are Morally Wrong’. The UI Faculty is protesting this but the story gets more complex because it now appears that Howell was chosen for his job AND PAID FOR HIS TEACHING by the Archdiocese. Apparently, his position as a lecturer was not reviewed by faculty!
There are enough issues here to feed a river full a piranha. Howell was fired byu the University for speaking his mind in a class on Christian Religion. The firing, like the Aprikyan case at the UW seems to violate the central role of the faculty in overseeing academic content … not to mention violating protected speech under the first amendment.
At the same time, there the supposed separation of Church and State. Is it OK for any church to select faculty to teach at a public university?
To further the entanglement, this raises the whole issue of state financing of eduction since Howell, as a lecturer, was paid poorly and even that pay was subsidized by his sponsor .. the Catholic Church. I wonder if Coke Cola might be interested in hiring nutrition faculty for the UW?
Excellent article and easy to understand explanation. How do I go about getting permission to post part of the article in my upcoming news letter? Giving proper credit to you the author and link to the site would not be a problem.