Short version:
One college professor wrote that House Republicans should be “lined up and shot.”
Another college professor said he wouldn’t be attending a racial sensitivity seminar because it was “totalitarian.”
Guess which professor doesn’t have a job today.
Longer version:
An Art Institute of Washington professor recently declared that House Republicans “should be lined up and shot” for their passage of an Obamacare-replacement bill.
“They should be lined up and shot,” Professor John Griffin posted to his Facebook, according to a screenshot of the post obtained by Campus Reform, even clarifying that he wasn’t being hyperbolic, saying “that’s not hyperbole; blood is on their hands.”
But it’s ok, he apologized for the language. Yup. That’s all. Nothing to see here.
But for Paul Griffiths, a professor of theology at Duke University, is resigning rather than facing disciplinary measures for criticizing a “Racial Equality Institute” training program.
Paul Griffiths, Warren professor of Catholic theology, responded to a faculty-wide email announcing the program by criticizing it as a waste of time and declaring that it would be “intellectually flaccid.”
The resulting firestorm of criticism led to disciplinary measures that the professor refused to accept.
Washington Times:“I exhort you not to attend this training,” Mr. Griffiths wrote in the Feb. 6 email. “Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, cliches, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show.”
Several colleagues replied that they were looking forward to the Racial Equity Institute training session, which was scheduled for March 4-5 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Elaine Heath, dean of the divinity school, took a different tack.
She condemned Mr. Griffiths for using mass email “in order to humiliate or undermine individual colleagues or groups of colleagues with whom we disagree.”
“The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution,” she wrote in the email, also sent Feb. 6.
Mr. Griffiths sent another facultywide email months later detailing the disciplinary procedures brought against him after the initial email exchange, which was first reported by Rod Dreher of the American Conservative.
Ms. Heath tried to schedule a meeting with Mr. Griffiths but refused to let him bring a sympathetic colleague, English professor Thomas Pfau, to serve as a witness. She eventually barred him from faculty meetings and threatened to take away his access to research funds.
Parents, please consider carefully where you’re paying to send your child. Please.
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