Update [2005-12-11 21:47:33 by Steven D]: This post is was intended as hyperbole. Just to be clear I don’t expect anyone to boycott the State of Kansas. Though if you intend to attend the University of Kansas I’d certainly think long and hard about what other options are available to you. Steven D
I’m serious. Boycott the whole damn state.
Why? Because of THIS:
LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) — A college professor who drew sharp criticism for comments deriding Christian fundamentalists over “intelligent design” said he was forced out as chairman of the university’s religious studies department.
Paul Mirecki, who remains a professor at the University of Kansas, said he had no choice when he signed the resignation letter, typed on stationary from the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“The University penalized me and denied me my Constitutionally protected right to speak and express my mind,” he said in a written statement Friday for the Lawrence Journal-World. He said his career had been ruined and his speaking engagements canceled.
. . . The controversy began with a course Mirecki planned to teach called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies.” The class was proposed after the Kansas Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in its school science standards.
The class was canceled last week after e-mails surfaced in which Mirecki mocked religious conservatives as “fundies” and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a “nice slap in their big fat face.” He has apologized for those comments.
On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course. Law enforcement officials were investigating.
Make sure you go to the CNN web page for this story so you can see a picture of Professor Mirecki with the black eyes he was given by the two Fundie “storm troopers” who assaulted him.
And regarding the investigation of his attack by Lawrence law enforcement, Mirecki had this to say:
He said he was not pleased with the sheriff’s investigation because he had been “treated more like a criminal than a victim.”
He said he was interviewed by officers several times, “once for five hours straight. They keep asking me the same things over and over. They seized my car; they entered my office and seized my computer. They said they need them for their investigation but it didn’t make any sense to me.”
Sounds to me like the Sheriff’s office is acting like Mirecki did something wrong. Why else would they seize his car and his computer? If so, it sounds like they are basically treating Professor Mirecki as a pariah. It doesn’t surprise me that some are already claiming he fabricated his attack.
