Educational & Professional McCarthyism

You know that expression “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

In the culture wars, it is the truism of truisms.

From the beginning of the culture wars (I don’t wish to debate when they started, perhaps all the way back to Adam & Eve) education has been the front lines.  Sure, weapons and tactics change, but the end game remains the same.  Control education, control the culture.

The age old and continuing battle has been over curriculum.  You know the battles over Creation, Evolution, sex education, and trans-gendered lesbianic social inclusion studies.

But there are other battles waging of which you should be aware.

Professional McCarthyism.

The has recently been a new wave of professional McCarthyism aimed at purging academia of undesirable ideas (read religious).

Just recently the firing of a University of Illinois has been in the news.  Kenneth Howell, who teaches a course on Catholicism, was given the boot for admitting that he actually believes in Catholicism.  Specifically because he agrees with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

Similarly, some students are being denied graduation on the same grounds.

Julea Ward, a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, was thrown out of the program for refusing to affirm homosexual behavior.  She filed a lawsuit against the University but it was just dismissed by a federal judge.

Jennifer Keeton, a counseling student at Georgia’s Augusta State University, was told that because of her views on homosexuality, she would have to repudiate those views and participate in a remediation (read re-education) plan or get out.  She was told by a faculty member “You couldn’t be a teacher, let alone a counselor, with those views.” She has also chosen to sue.

The University of California system has taken this intimidation to a new level.  They are denying admission to students from religious high schools because they discount any courses—biology, history, and literature—that include a religious perspective.  This cuts off the University of California system for any religious school student which affects mostly Catholic School students.  The notoriously anti-Christian Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the UC decision.  The case is being appealed to the Supreme Court.

This war for the heart and soul of education is being waged all around us every day.  We must continue to fight these battles.