UIUC official: Dr. Kenneth Howell hasn't been fired...

... he's just not allowed to teach for the time being. LifeSiteNews reports:

After lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) notified university officials that they were launching legal action, UIUC deputy counsel Steven Veazie responded that, because Howell is still a member of the faculty, there are no grounds for litigation, according to CNSNews.

While admitting that the professor's teaching assignment is "as yet undetermined pending a review of this matter," Veazie said that because Howell's legal rights have not been violated, there is “no case or controversy upon which legal action would be warranted at this time.”

A form e-mail from UIUC President Michael Hogan that is being sent in response to the controversy states that "misinformation" that Howell has been fired ought to be "corrected."

"Prof. Howell has not been dismissed from the University, as misreported on the Internet and by several media outlets," writes Hogan. "He continues to hold his appointment as an adjunct professor. No decision has been made regarding the appointment of an instructor for the course Prof. Howell previously taught in the Fall semester; and no decision will be made until the review is complete."

ADF attorneys responded that such a distinction was pointless.

“While he continues to hold his appointment as adjunct professor, that title is virtually meaningless if he has no classes to teach,” wrote ADF attorney David Hacker in a letter to UIUC.

Read the entire report. If you haven't seen it/signed it already, there is an online petition supporting Dr. Howell run by TFP (Tradition, Family, Property) Student Action. Also, click here to visit the Save Dr. Ken Facebook page. This whole sorry, pathetic exercise in anti-Catholic bigotry and faux sensitivity makes me think of Ambrose Bierce's definition of "education": "That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." You can get a good taste of the foolishness in reading this laughable "explanation" as to the "real reason" that Dr. Howell was fired/put in academic limbo.

Comments

[LJ]

Reading the statements that Prof. Howell made in the e-mail quoted by Kyle Betts in his neatly wrapped bit of sophistry, it sounds as though Howell explained Catholic theology quite well. And that was what he was supposed to do as a professor teaching an Introduction to Catholicism.

It seems that what Kyle Betts and the complainer cannot separate is the academic exercise of learning a specific body of philosophy/religion and accepting that body of teaching as true.

To take an extreme example, perhaps a tired one, but to the point. A study of the rise of the Third Reich and the little book Mein Kompf is a valid academic exercise. I cannot imagine anyone objecting to a thorough study, in a real university, of the hideous ideas that were a part of what made Hitler who he was. It is not required that one accept those ideas to know what they are.

Likewise, anyone who is offended by the Church's teaching on homosexuality and/or sexuality generally is not required to accept that teaching merely by knowing what it is. Unless, of course, they are a Catholic who does not wish to be a dissenter.

All this adventure in censorship does is demonstrate that UIUC is not really a university at all, and the complainer does not want to go to a real university.

[joe]

What amuses is that dissent is no more allowed in the secular world than the Catholic Church. Maybe the Church is more forthright in talking straight, and more lax in enforcement. If you are anti-gay sex in a public school, get ready to be targeted. We cannot marginalize either of Heather's two mommies.

[LJ]

After reading this story in the Chigaco Tribune I think I understand;

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-catholic-professor-20100717,0,5015388.story

Howell was teaching Catholicism as if it were actually true.

[Mundabor]

I have blogged about Dr. Howell several times already and will continue to follow the story.

The most shocking aspect of this entire matter is in my eyes the fact that there is not even the will to hide the fact that the man has been fired because Catholicism goes against the new god of "inclusiveness". No, their problem is very clearly ..... Catholicism!
This kind of behaviour would be a scandal in a kindergarten, but in a University it shows the tragic loss of any idea of academic freedom.
I hope that heads will roll on this, and I do not mean Dr. Howell's.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

Dogmatic secularism is now the American tyrant. Catholic moral and social teaching will not be tolerated and they have just claimed one more victim. What has been done to Dr. Howell has been done to us all. Who will they shut down or shut up next. It is time for the bishops to unite us Unite us!

"A collective tyrant, spread over the length and breadth of the land, is no more acceptable than a single tyrant ensconced on his throne."

Georges Clemenceau

[Jim McCullough]

Isn't that Ambrose Bierce?

[Carl E. Olson]

Yes, Jim, it is. Thanks for the great catch! I've been reading Bierce for 25 years and I still do that, to my shame.

[Mundabor]

After participating to the online petition I have received from Michael Hogan, the University President, a carefully-worded standard answer implying that in this matter there is much more than what has been reported by the press and that - of course - we should avoid being "judgmental". Amazingly, he maintains that no decision has been taken yet.

Apart from the obvious attempt to smear Dr. Howell's personal integrity ("ah, but you don't know the whoooole story!" The man has been teaching at UIUC for nine years, for crying out loud!) what appears clear to me is that dear Mr. Hogan begins to feel rather uneasy and will not hesitate to sacrifice the face or the job of some of his politically correct vassals before he marches towards the scaffold himself.

I invite all the readers to sign the petition and let Mr. Howard feel all the heat of the summer.

[Nancy]

"it is time for the bishops to unite us Unite us." It is time for the Bishops to unite so that they can Unite us. Let us Pray that Our Lady of Fatima will intercede for us.

[Charles E Flynn]

If this fiasco continues, Prof. Howell will be uniquely qualified to lecture on the subject of "distinction without a difference."