In these United States of America, supposedly the land of the free and home of the brave, there are still plenty of people in high places who actually believe they have the right and the power to punish others for merely expressing their thoughts.
As far as these cultural statist overlords are concerned the First Amendment Freedom of Speech Clause may be damned.
Gallaudet University president, T. Alan Hurwitz, fits the description perfectly.
Gallaudet University is a federally chartered educational institution located in Washington, D.C. founded in the mid nineteenth century for education of deaf and hard of hearing students. As such it is the beneficiary of government, i.e. taxpayer largess.
Dr. Angela McCaskill is a 23-year veteran employee of the university
“It recently came to my attention that Dr. McCaskill has participated in a legislative initiative that some feel is inappropriate for an individual serving as Chief Diversity Officer; however, other individuals feel differently,” president Hurwitz wrote in an email sent to the campus community after suspending her for signing a petition at her church to put an anti-gay marriage referendum on the ballot in Maryland.
In other words, this lady, who earned the school’s first PhD as a deaf African-American woman, was suspended as the university investigates her support for traditional marriage, and her job remains in jeopardy.
McCaskill was one of 200,000 residents who signed a petition to put “Maryland’s Question 6” on the ballot. The measure is a referendum on same-sex “marriage.”
The Washington Blade published the names and addresses of every person who signed the petition. An anonymous faculty member spotted McCaskill’s name in the newspaper and immediately notified authorities.
As it happens, the “authorities” at Gallaudet University don’t take kindly to employees who sign political petitions which aren’t conforming exactly to their own politically correct points of view. They think it’s perfectly alright to spy on what they do on their own time and then punish them for exercising their fundamental constitutional rights of free speech.
“Unfortunately, Dr. McCaskill and her family have been subjected to threats and intimidation as a result of the media coverage of the actions taken by President Hurwitz on behalf of Gallaudet University,” said Lee Washington, McCaskill’s pastor of Reid Temple. “As her church family, we stand firmly by her side and welcome all persons of good faith, regardless of their ideological views to denounce these actions of cowardice and bullying.”
He denounced the university’s decision calling it “beyond the boundaries of civility.”
Though I personally believe that gays should enjoy the right to marry just like anyone else, I could hardly agree more with the pastor in this instance. Dr. McCaskill enjoys a fundamental constitutional right to disagree and to express her disagreement in a written petition.
This suspension of her rightful employment for signing a petition at her church constitutes an arrogant outrageous and blatant violation of her First Amendment rights. Gallaudet University president, T. Alan Hurwitz, should be fired and the school should be held liable in damages to McCaskill in a court of law.
The First Amendment is the law at Gallaudet U.
,
Modern academia is nothing but the priesthood for the state. Their main function is to promote the statist dogma and to stamp out heresy. In return they receive almost endless state largess.
ReplyDelete