Free Speech in the Classroom

I heard a news report this morning about a local junior college "professor" that used the bible as fact and said that homosexuals were mentally ill. The ACLU is suing the school on behalf of some of his students who have complained about what he is teaching. The class that he made those remarks in is a health class.

I am all for professors having free speech. At a university, it is the job of the professor to not only teach classes but to also perform research in their field of expertise. They publish books and speak at events. They are used to formulating their own opinions and it is only natural that they would give their opinions in their classrooms and lecture halls.

This so called professor is teaching at a state junior college. There are no requirements for research at most of these colleges and most of the instructors are not even professors. Professors usually have a PhD or have completed a post-doctoral fellowship. This level of education is not required at most junior colleges because of the high salary requirements.

The problem I have with what this individual is saying in his classes is that he is teaching hate. He is singling out certain people as not normal and that is not acceptable in a higher learning environment. I also have a very big problem with god-fearing Christians hating people. You may think that the word hate is too strong, but I think that anytime that you talk about a group of people as not being normal or not being right, that you are using hate. I always thought that Christians were supposed to love all of God's creatures and hate just does not seem to align with those beliefs.

I also have a problem with a well-educated man using the bible or any other religious book as fact. It is generally accepted that these books are not fact, but rather parable. These books are meant to tell a story and teach a lesson. They are not fact and accepting them as such can get you into trouble. There is, for instance, scientific proof that evolution is a fact. The moment you dismiss this fact and inject your religious beliefs into the argument is the moment that you lose all credibility.

It is not the job of a public junior college instructor to inject his religion into his teaching. I think a really good example would be if a Muslim instructor started teaching the Qur’an as fact in a city with a predominately Christian population. The people in that community would call for the firing of that instructor and would not rest until it happened. The instructor that caused this lawsuit happens to teach in a very conservative, predominantly Christian area. For this reason, most of the people in the community support him. That does not make what he is doing right and the ACLU is standing up for the little guy in this situation. I support them for that, but I am not sure that I want to censor professor's speech. This is a very tricky topic.