Skip to main content

A victory for academic freedom

The University of Illinois reinstated Dr Kenneth Howell who was fired by the university for teaching the Roman Catholic Church's doctrinal position on homosexuality. Dr Howell taught a course on Catholicism.

EWTN news has this to say

'In a class on Catholicism last spring, he followed up a classroom discussion with an e-mail contrasting the ways in which utilitarianism and natural law theory would each determine the morality of homosexual conduct.

A student complained that Howell's words were “hate speech” in an e-mail to the head of the department, Dr. Robert McKim. Howell was called into McKim's office at the end of the semester and told that he would no longer be allowed to teach for the university because his e-mail had “violate[d] university standards of inclusivity.”

In Howell's defense, the ADF declared that the First Amendment exists to keep controversial ideas from being suppressed. “A university cannot censor professors’ speech--including classroom speech related to the topic of the class--merely because certain ideas ‘offend’ an anonymous student,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French."

My take on this: Is it hateful to teach in a class let's say on the Holocaust, the Nazi doctrine on racial purity? A professor in teaching the truth about the Holocaust will have to quote the horrendous words of Herr Doktor Joseph Goebbles. Not to do so would be a great disservice to truth.

No Jewish or any other thinking student I believe will be stupid enough to see that the professor is fomenting hatred. I cannot say that for the student who complained about "hate speech".

Academic freedom that naturally follows the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech but goes beyond that by protecting professors and students rights about what can be taught. But the freedom of speech guarantees can protect people like Joseph Goebbles. Academic freedom is in service of the truth and not lies. Universities are places where the truth is searched. Academic freedom is a guarantee that the university will be a place for inquiring about the truth.

Surely academic freedom has it limits. It cannot be invoked if the professor is espousing views unrelated to the course. A professor cannot espouse an ideology in a class let us say in linear algebra.

But this case hardly applies in Dr Howell's course on Catholicism where a fact of Catholic doctrine was taught.







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How should we remember General Antonio Luna?

Well it seems with that proposal to rename Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Antonio Luna in time for National Heroes Day has generated a lot of social media buzz. We really have to really understand our national heroes. Antonio Luna was a remarkable personality but like all of us was flawed. He likely would be an academic had the revolution not intervened. He would have been the first Dean of a College of Science of the Philippine University had the nation made the transition to indepe ndence in a peaceful manner. That was recognized by the American College of Pharmacy when they feted Dr Luna on what would have been his 60th birthday noting his work in combating malaria. But that was not to be. He became a soldier. General Luna was for a professional military within the bounds of the constitution. Perhaps that is the biggest sign of contradiction for today. Please answer the question: Would President Duterte (or a President Aquino, Marcos, Arroyo, Quezon etc) have a General Luna as his c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's  El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats,  which are when the time is right and who will in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Marikina River and the "janitor" fish

My newest environmental science research project is to determine the evolutionary biology of invasion by the "janitor fish" in Marikina River. Today we made our first survey and collections. Marikina River is the"greenest"in Metro Manila but that is just on the surface. One master's student is doing her thesis on biotic integrity and a volunteer MD is working on the project too. The "janitor fish (Pterygoplichthys sp) is the dominant fish now in the river,displacing traditional Marikina food fishes such as dalag and hito. The fish are collected and left to rot on the riverbanks. Despite this, there is still some subsistence fishing on the river. The highest densities of the fish are observed near sewage outfalls where they find food to eat. It is likely that the fish can be controlled if we can clean up the river! BTW the name "janitor fish" insults janitors. The fish thrive in dirty rivers and don't clean them up. Janitors on the other hand, ...
Post a Comment
Read more