"Academic Freedom" at BYU
A Brigham Young University professor has been fired after writing an op-ed supporting same sex marriage.
Philosophy professor Jeffrey Nielsen wrote in the Salt Lake Tribune that "Legalizing gay marriage reinforces the importance of committed relationships and would strengthen the institution of marriage."
Daniel Graham, chair of the philosophy department, instantly fired Nielsen.
A university spokeswoman, Carri Jenkins, told insidehighered.com that “the department made the decision because of the opinion piece that had been written, and based on the fact that Mr. Nielsen publicly contradicted and opposed an official statement by top church leaders."
The nerve of him.
(The incident also shows that Harvard is not the only institution with a deplorable reliance on spokespeople. You'd think that if you've just fired a man for speaking his mind, you'd have the guts to speak yours. But maybe it doesn't work that way.)
InsideHigherEd.com reports that BYU does have a statement on academic freedom. It's not a good sign that it's several pages long. It reads, in part, “For those who have embraced the gospel, BYU offers an especially rich and full kind of academic freedom.” But, on the other hand, "reasonable limitiations mediate the competing claims of individual and academic freedom."
In other words, BYU has no academic freedom.
Why does this matter? Well, of course it's not a good sign for gay people in Utah, and it's no fun for Mr. Nielsen.
But it also matters because Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and he's almost certainly running for president.
Would someone please ask him if believes that university professors should be fired for supporting gay marriage? And maybe, just maybe, Romney will have pull a JFK and declare his independence from his church before he can be taken seriously as a national politician.
