Anti-creationism professor: Resignation was forced

[Meldread]

LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) -- A college professor who drew sharp criticism for comments deriding Christian fundamentalists over "intelligent design" said he was forced out as chairman of the university's religious studies department.

Paul Mirecki, who remains a professor at the University of Kansas, said he had no choice when he signed the resignation letter, typed on stationary from the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"The University penalized me and denied me my Constitutionally protected right to speak and express my mind," he said in a written statement Friday for the Lawrence Journal-World. He said his career had been ruined and his speaking engagements canceled.

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Pathetic.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/12/11/creationism.professor.ap/index.html

[alittlelark]

1. We can all see the comparisons....

WE are called on now.

[cornermouse]

2. I'm really disappointed with KU.

I thought they were better than that.

[opihimoimoi]

3. The WAR has Started.....IGNORANCE vs INTELLEGENCE

Its the US and THEM Thingy.

[Igel]

4. He should be tactful. He's representing the university and

the department; it doesn't matter if he's saying nasty things about fundamentalists or unitarians, Muslims or Taoists.

He's still in the department; he's just not chair. I can't help but wonder if part of the problem wasn't his assigning himself a course to take potshots at a politically charged position he dislikes, however much it may relate to religious studies, and then saying he intended it as a slap in the face. Had the quote not been publicized, the course would have gone on. He can teach whatever he wants to in the courses his (new) dept. chair authorizes, and I don't see his research being limited by the university. He has freedom of speech and academic freedom: he does not have a constitutionally protected right to embarrass to use a chairship to embarrass the university. (My reasoning is, indeed, formally circular: He wouldn't have been removed as chair had he not embarrassed the university, and my evidence that he embarrassed the university is that he was removed as chair. Still, it seems likely that somebody viewed his choice of words as embarrassing and inappropriate.)

I don't consider it likely that the university contacted groups and universities that asked him to speak and forced them to withdraw their requests. He enabled that all by himself; unless you hire an insensitive and inflammatory speaker on purpose, it's usually a shock. His academic credentials will most likely stay the same: blind review and all that.

I've seen many tenured 'star' faculty whine. I've heard additional horror stories of whining faculty.