Le Moyne Sued After Expelling Grad Student Who Expressed Conservative Views
by Jim Brown
May 9, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Jesuit college in New York State has been hit with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit after expelling a graduate student from its education masters program for expressing his conservative views in a paper.Last fall, former graduate student Scott McConnell was dismissed from Le Moyne College in Syracuse for writing a paper opposing multicultural education and advocating corporal punishment in elementary schools. The head of the school's Education Department, Cathy Leogrande, had told the "A" student his expulsion was due to a "mismatch" between his personal beliefs and Le Moyne's program goals.
Now the former degree candidate has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Jesuit school for allegedly expelling him from its master's in education program because of his conservative views. His attorney, Samuel Abady, calls the dismissal a "gross violation of McConnell's rights to freedom of expression" and says what makes this case so particularly odious is that "you have an institution which is supposed to foster academic freedom, and here it has trampled on that summarily."
Abady contends that political correctness is an epidemic on U.S. college campuses, and he says it remains to be seen whether other schools will follow Le Moyne's example and refuse to admit McConnell because of their antipathy to his political views. The education major's dismissal "may well have a long-term consequence," the attorney says. "We don't as yet know."
But according to Abady, the college erred not only by denying his client a hearing but also by committing one of the most serious offenses in the school's own code of conduct; namely, "interfering with the freedom of expression" of another member of the Le Moyne community. McConnell's lawyer says the people who expelled him "should themselves be fired from their academic positions because they interfered with his right to free expression."
The officials at Le Moyne College should have protected and upheld the intellectual freedom of all the students on their campus, Abady asserts, regardless of their political bent. However, he adds, "in Scott McConnell's case, they have trampled on academic freedom and destroyed this kid's teaching career, simply because they didn't like his opinion. It's an outrage."
McConnell's lawsuit was filed last Thursday (May 5) in the New York State Supreme Court in Syracuse.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.© 2005 AgapePress all rights reserved.
