Punishing Heresy in the New Sexual Orthodoxy
For all the talk of tolerance and diversity, there is no more intolerant, ruthless, totalitarian mindset than that of the GLBTQIXYZ academic. When it comes to enforcing the new sexual orthodoxy, these people would make the typical Spanish Inquisitor or KGB agent proud.
Case in point: Dr. Margaret Aymer, head of the New Testament department at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, a coalition of historically black seminaries. Seems she had a dissident in her ranks, Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, and she decided to take care of him before his insidious dissent could take hold. According to World on Campus:
In February, Hopkins invited Dr. Alice Brown-Collins, director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Black Campus Ministries in the New England Region, to speak to a group of conservative students on campus. Despite its diverse theological teachings, the school’s student body comes from the black church, which mostly retains an orthodox interpretation of scripture. After her presentation, Brown-Collins gave one of the students a copy of The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert Gagnon.
The next day, Hopkins’ department chair grilled him about the meeting, the book and his association with InterVarsity, an evangelical Christian campus ministry. The whole situation violated ITC’s code of ethics, which pledges the school’s commitment to a diversity that includes sexual orientation, Dr. Margaret Aymer told Hopkins. When he rose to leave, Aymer warned him he had put his job at risk.
Three months later, the school dismissed Hopkins, who has filed a discrimination complaint against ITC with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. ITC discriminated against him for his evangelical beliefs and his sex, Hopkins claims. School administrators also engaged in a deliberate attempt to humiliate him and damage his reputation by changing his students’ grades, in violation of school policy, Hopkins said.
Hopkins has taught at ITC since 2008, and previously had been allowed to set his own classroom course, including being able to choose his own textbooks. Something about the visit by Brown-Collins seems to have alerted Aymer to the fact that there were doubleplusungood ideas being taught on campus, or perhaps she just harbors a special hatred for Inter-Varsity for some unknown reason. In any case, there are a boatload of shenanigans going on:
After Aymer threatened his job, Hopkins filed a formal grievance with the school. Administrators didn’t acknowledge his complaint for two months, during which Aymer continued to write negative reviews of Hopkins. She also tried to make a case against him by calling former colleagues and fellow theologians, Hopkins said. And she told him the orthodox texts he used in his New Testament classes had to go.
“She said none of the books gave the current scholarly view of the New Testament,” Hopkins said. “She said I needed more books conducive to womanist theology, post-colonial theology or LGBT theology.”
At the end of the semester, when one student emailed Hopkins to ask when his grade would be changed, Hopkins learned administrators had started changing his students’ final grades. Ten students, several of whom had gotten F’s from Hopkins, ended up with C’s, or better. One student’s F became an A-.
Changing the grades not only did a disservice to the students and the institution but obviously served to damage the professor’s reputation, an act of retaliation, said Joe C. Hopkins, Jamal Hopkins’ lawyer and father: “Because of one day, one book, one disagreement, or perceived disagreement, his career can be destroyed with the stroke of a pen, without any thought to the significant contribution he can and has made to theological education.”
Aymer preached at the recently concluded Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, and has been a resource person for the denomination’s Advocacy Committee for Racial and Ethnic Concerns. She’s also, on this evidence (which also appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which added that Hopkins had been given a promotion to associate professor and a raise in February), a disgrace to her profession who would be better suited teaching at a Communist indoctrination school in Havana or Pyongyang. As for the school, if administrators were changing grades, the Association of Theological Schools is going to have to give pulling accreditation some serious consideration.
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14 comments
Disgusting but sadly not surprising. The hypocracy of “loberals” knows no bounds.
[1] Posted by evan miller on 8-14-2012 at 10:11 AM · [top]
For some, the GLBTQIXYZ agenda trumps all. This is unfortunately probably more indicitive of what happens at universities all over than we would like to think.
[2] Posted by B. Hunter on 8-14-2012 at 11:35 AM · [top]
This does not bode well for this coalition of historically black seminaries, its future students, and the congregations to whom they will pastor.
[3] Posted by Undergroundpewster on 8-14-2012 at 11:48 AM · [top]
To terms like “Uncle Tom” and “Oreo” there needs to be added some descriptor of a black skinned person who is really just a white liberal.
[4] Posted by Timothy Fountain on 8-14-2012 at 11:55 AM · [top]
I hope Prof. Hopkins and his lawyer clean out the Interdenominational Theological Center and Dr. Margaret Aymer financially and professionally. Let them be a byword to all the peoples.
[5] Posted by Milton on 8-14-2012 at 12:36 PM · [top]
So surely one of you has the article about the massive march and protest demanding tolerance and equal rights, correct? The churches and people who believe Scripture is real and this action crosses a line with freedom of conscience and speech organized a protest right?
Yeah, what I thought. Apathy is the gift of the devil to the modern church.
[6] Posted by iamaworm on 8-14-2012 at 01:16 PM · [top]
If Prof. Hopkins was given a promotion to associate professor, then—in normal academic practice, at least—he’d be tenured. (I’m not familiar with ITC’s particular policies, which is why I’m referring only to normal practice.) This kind of behavior—the propagation of unpopular ideas—is exactly what tenure is supposed to protect. Everybody knows that some folks, once tenured, will effectively quit producing; the idea behind tenure is that a certain amount of dead wood is a worthwhile price to pay for protecting the freedom of inquiry.
I notice that Prof. Hopkins is no longer listed as faculty on the ITC’s Web site. Firing a tenured faculty member is supposed to be reserved for high crimes and misdemeanors (for example, stealing from the institution). This is nothing like that.
Now, it’s possible that Hopkins left on his own (perhaps figuring the work environment was too hostile), rather than being fired. But if he *was* fired, then the accreditors have a whole ‘nother thing to look into.
[7] Posted by Peter Brown on 8-14-2012 at 01:29 PM · [top]
Tim+,
There is…Obama.
As an aside (and back on topic) I once was faculty at a small business and programming college, and was fired after I refused to change posted grades, so federally assisted minority students could keep their funds in place for training. They had been taught previously by the administration, that they just had to ‘show up’ to get A’s and B’s. Nothing lower was allowed. This was in the mid-nineties, in the South.
[8] Posted by Fr. Chip, SF on 8-14-2012 at 02:05 PM · [top]
If the Forces of Tolerance are about anything, it’s crushing all heterodox views before them.
That said, this is a private insitution and they can do as they wish (at the risk of losing reputation and/or accreditation, that is).
[9] Posted by Jeffersonian on 8-14-2012 at 02:57 PM · [top]
Most black Americans oppose the same-sex agenda. For instance, something like 67% of African-Americans who voted on the recent North Carolina marriage amendment voted in favor of traditional marriage. How are these radical seminary trainees going to fare when they face the people in the pews?
[10] Posted by Katherine on 8-14-2012 at 03:34 PM · [top]
Tim+ and Anglican Father Chip, I rather like the term, Obummer.
I have taught at a variety of SACS accredited two year colleges. NO WHERE I have had my final grades changed even when teaching students in a very competitive pre-nursing program. In fact, most colleges are very careful about the handling of final grades. Sure, grades used to be posted when I was in college. Not any more. In fact, I can’t tell my students their grades over the phone, via email or even if they leave me a postcard on which I write their grade. Now many colleges have computer systems to which faculty upload final grades.
If this behavior of ITS is correct, they could lose their accreditation (if they are accredited by SACS or another regional accrediting association). That could be a serious problem for the school…....repeat SERIOUS problem.
[11] Posted by SC blu cat lady on 8-14-2012 at 04:26 PM · [top]
SC blu cat lady,
Our present western SD term is : Obamanation…the dems like it because we have promoted him, and the rest understand my drift /snark.
Chip +
[12] Posted by Fr. Chip, SF on 8-14-2012 at 04:54 PM · [top]
If the facts of the story are as they are presented here, then there are substantial accreditation questions.
But, the idea of academic freedom is quickly disappearing. A conservative friend who works at a well-known university tells me that she dare not discuss her private views about homosexual practice, even though those views are shared by the great majority of Christian laity and clergy.
[13] Posted by Ralph on 8-14-2012 at 05:14 PM · [top]
They are already on the accreditor’s watch list.
http://www.itc.edu/pages/sacs_statement.asp
One hopes that both the accreditors and the professional association mentioned in the AJC article bring answers.
[14] Posted by BlueOntario on 8-16-2012 at 01:49 AM · [top]
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