Ruth Institute Blog

As a Catholic and an alumnus of U of I, I have been following this story with great interest and alarm. I have already written to the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at U of I (which the Department of Religion is a part of) to protest the dismissal of Dr. Howell. I would encourage other concerned alumni to write to U of I as well.

Here are some good links for more information:

Champaign News-Gazette (local newspaper) religion news
American Papist: ‘Action Item’ posts, including posts on Dr. Howell
Statement from Dr. Howell

There is a fine line between religious beliefs and hate speech, and from what I’ve read this professor did not cross it. Hopefully the offended student will soon learn to distinguish between the two.

I wish this story had included the entire email, because only then would I be able to tell whether he was disrespectful or hateful to this student or not. I think that given the subject matter of the course, it is to be expected that the professor would be teaching the tenets of the Catholic Church, which of course are discriminatory against gays (and women as well for that matter). But I took a course on Islam in college and learned things about that religion with which I personally disagreed. Of course, the professor, although well-versed in the history and theology of the religion, also didn’t seek to promote it and never attacked my morality for disagreeing with Islamic tenets.

“Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY,” he wrote in the e-mail. “In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.”

This statement certainly appears offensive, with the emphasis on the word “reality” as though LGBT persons are somehow outside of reality or outside of morality. Morality, reality, and same-sex relationships are not mutually exclusive, regardless of the emphasis placed on the term reality. And the following sentence is a non sequitur, that is, it does not follow the premise contained in the first sentence. There is nothing inherently logical about the claim that “sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.” Why? Homosexuality exists in reality, so why would sexual acts between these individuals be immoral? I wonder if the rest of the email was filled with hateful invective or bullying cruelty toward this student. I want to know more! I mean, I have definitely had professors with whom I have heatedly disagreed over the years, but none who have attacked my morality.

That said, this WAS a class on Catholicism, so I suppose that if the student signed up for it, she should have expected this drivel. But I guess we won’t know the whole story unless we get to see the entire email conversation that occurred. If the above quote was the extent of it, I would say that the professor was kind of a jerk, but probably didn’t deserve to be fired. Revenge could have been had in the teacher evaluation at the end of the semester and word of mouth around campus about him and his class could have been sufficient to address the issue. There was one psychology teacher on my college campus who was a rabid sexist jerk, and women just knew not to take his class but to choose one with a different professor.

Heidi,

Please see the Champaign News-Gazette link in my first comment above. Both original e-mails are posted there — the one from Dr. Howell to his students, as well as the complaint from an anonymous student that got him fired (a student who didn’t even take his class, by the way).

However, I would urge you to keep in mind that in his e-mail, Dr. Howell was expanding on topics that he had already covered in class. Thus the intended audience for the e-mail had access to context that you (as someone who did not take his class) do not have.

Also, on the point of teacher evaluations that you raised, I would point out that Dr. Howell was recognized for teaching excellence in fall 2008, spring 2009, and fall 2009, based on evaluations submitted by his students:

http://www.relst.uiuc.edu/news/index.html#Awards

Heidi, how can you say we must not come to conclusions on this since we haven’t been shown the full letter, yet say the Catholic Church is against gays & women when you don’t have any proof? I know you have no proof, because here is the Catholic Church’s actual stance on the issue:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

“It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”
– Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve seen the professor’s whole letter. It’s on the internet. There was nothing wrong with it, other than the professor simplifying Natural Law too much. Hence, people like Heidi believing that the professor thinks gays are unreal. Also, I too took a class in college once where the professor was sexist, but he had just gone through a REALLY bad divorce.

As a native of Illinois I wrote the University of Illinois a week ago deploring their abandonment of the time-honored standards of academic freedom and replacing it with a policy of political correctness that results in a summary dismissal based on an anonymous report alleging, but never proving, the charge of “hate speech.” The dismissal is groundless unless, of course, you believe that Catholic doctrine and philosophy on homosexual behavior is ipso facto hate speech. Partly because of public opinion and partly because of the threat of a lawsuit, the University is reviewing its decision.

Thank you for directing me to the emails, Paul. I will say that it did seem a bit like preaching, and I wonder why he did not include other opposing points of view that also rest on natural law as a basis for determining the morality of acts. Is he aware that not all natural law theorists agree with the conclusions of the Catholic Church on the issue of homosexuality?

I don’t agree that he should have been fired. That said, I do find offensive his implication that those who disagree with his particular understanding of natural law are not using right reason, and that the only rational conclusions that one may make are those that find homosexual acts to be morally wrong. “Catholics don’t arrive at their moral conclusions based on their religion. They do so based on a thorough understanding of natural reality.” Uh-huh. Right. That is utter foolishness to make such a claim. I’m a moral realist myself, but I believe that natural law places an emphasis on justice and equality, not on whether or not particular human sex acts are procreative or not. Here’s an interesting article for your consideration on the flaws of this type of reasoning:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/gay-rights-and-the-natura_b_399322.html

Probably the most offensive thing about the email is that it relies on stereotypes about gay people. Example: “To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the ‘woman’ while the other acts as the ‘man.'” This may be the most annoying stereotype that same-sex couples face. My partner and I are forever being asked which one of us is the man and which one of us is the woman. Um, we are both women! Now, as human beings, we definitely have different personal variations of how we enact our individual gender identity–she is more externally “masculine” but more internally/emotionally “feminine” and I am more externally “feminine” but more internally/emotionally “masculine.” But that only goes to show the false dichotomy of rigid gender steroetypes. Most people, at least the healthy and emotionally integrated ones, are a blend of both the masculine and the feminine.

Finally, I am aware of the Catholic Church’s position on the dignity of all persons. I just happen to believe that treating people with dignity also includes treating them as equal citizens under the law.

Heidi, don’t get so hung-up on ‘enactment of gender identity’ and ‘gender stereotypes’ when reading the professor’s email regarding sexual behavior.

What he said about the sexual behavior in the all-male scenario was said in the prior context of the complementary basis (i.e. sex differentation) of ordered human sexuality. If you are familiar with Natural Law (in its various forms), then, you might recognize the error you just made.

Sex differentation is the reality to which the professor alluded. The moral significance of complementarity follows from that reality.

You’d dismiss that significance and instead assert the moral equivalence between one-sexed sexualized behavior and the conjugal relations of husband and wife. Seems to me that you do so both in acknowledgment of and in contradiction with the reality of sex differentation.

Respecting the human dignity of the individual is not compatable with the SSM campaign’s assertion that the gaycentric subset of nonmarriage is superior to the rest of the types of relationship and kinds of arrangements within the broad nonmarriage category.

That you cannot put your finger on what it is about marriage that merits its special status, your expectation of equal treatment is actually made a hollow assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics. You seek special treatment of an identity group.

I doubt that natural law philosophy can reasonably reach the conclusion that supremacy of an identity group produces equal treatment or even respect for human dignity.

Meanwhile, conjugal relations is not the moral equivalent of non-conjugal relations, as per natural law philosophy. This is about morally ordered and disordered behavior, not role playing.

But firing the professor? That is definitely about the intimidation of identity politics on campus.