Brooklyn College Prof Promoted After Disparaging Religious Community
by Jim Brown
May 31, 2005
(AgapePress) - Students on the campus of Brooklyn College in New York are expressing outrage following the promotion of a controversial professor who has allegedly made derisive and offensive remarks about religious individuals, including describing them as "moral retards."Dr. Timothy Shortell was recently elected by his colleagues to head Brooklyn College's Sociology Department. The move has angered various individuals and student groups on campus, given remarks the outspoken instructor has made about people of faith. In one online academic publication, he declared, "Christians claim that theirs is a faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you." Other disparaging remarks attributed to the professor include his alleged references to religious people as "an ugly, violent lot" and "moral retards."
Kevin Oro-Hahn, director of the college's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), feels the tone Shortell set in his article is cause for concern about how he teaches in class. "Liberal education was founded for open and honest dialogue by different voices in pursuit of truth," Oro-Hahn notes. However, he says Dr. Shortell's appointment is "one example of how illiberal higher education has become."
The IVCF official says on many American college campuses today, "There's kind of an established orthodoxy which can't be opposed by anyone else." Also, he contends that Brooklyn College virtually has its hands tied regarding Dr. Shortell's behavior. He was duly elected according to university guidelines, and despite the reaction of the campus and wider community to his acerbic comments, his appointment was the department's decision.
Still, Oro-Hahn believes there are a few ways Brooklyn College's administrators can act to initiate some damage control. "What I think they can do is continue to send some public signals that they are really committed to religious diversity," he says, "and that they're really committed to making sure different voices are getting heard." However, if the school officials fail to take the matter seriously, he adds, "They run a risk of getting too trapped into one particular view.
In a recent New York Daily News report on reactions to the professor's promotion, Oro-Hahn commented that he hopes the university community would be able to "move beyond mere rhetoric in the pursuit of truth." In that same article, however, student government president-elect Daniel Tauber said he worries that Shortell and other faculty members may breed religious intolerance at the diverse school.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
