Lindsey Stull | It's still free speech under fire

As a total geek, librarians have been some of my best friends. Bert Chapman, a Purdue librarian, will never be one of them. An unabashedly conservative blogger at news source Townhall.com, where he frequently refers to homosexuality as an “abominable practice,” he recently gained notoriety for a specific entry, entitled “An Economic Case Against Homosexuality.” While his Conservative Librarian blog posts normally receive few comments (a quick scan of the main page shows an average of 0-2), this one sports an impressive 93. Clearly, he hit a nerve.

The Purdue student population has reacted with petitions and protests, some calling for the university to fire Chapman outright, others simply expressing outrage at his “academic dishonesty and unprofessional mistreatment of students and faculty.” They called the blog entry an “attack on the community and on Purdue’s reputation.”

For me, the issue represents a difficult choice between my gut reaction and a more measured analysis of the situation.

My gut tells me that firing is the first step, followed by tarring and feathering. This guy blames AIDS on “morally aberrant sexual behavior” and suggests redirecting AIDS research funds to “more worthwhile areas of public-health research such as … promoting responsible sexual behavior such as monogamy within heterosexual marriage.” He refers to the adoption of domestic-partner benefits as a “sad practice” and generally spews badly informed hate speech for 800 words.

Personally, I fully support gay rights in every way, shape and form. I think premarital sex is healthy and generally advisable, and I believe that open relationships can certainly work in the right circumstances. Most of all, I do my best not to judge others’ relationship choices, as long as everything’s consensual.

Thus, I find Chapman’s post morally aberrant itself. While he argues that those who don’t approve of the “homosexual lifestyle” shouldn’t have to pay its costs (in terms of same-sex domestic-partner issues), I don’t really want my tax dollars to make up for funds lost when he gets a child-tax credit, thus encouraging him to reproduce and pass on those hateful genes. We live in an exceptionally diverse country — your money will always support someone whose life decisions you don’t fully agree with. But clearly Purdue students shouldn’t pay his salary, right? Fire the bastard!

Or not. Fifty years ago, the “attack on Purdue’s reputation” defense could just have easily have come from those of Chapman’s ilk seeking to fire a gay professor. Just as the Purdue students find his writings inconsistent with a societal trend in the direction of acceptance and tolerance to the LGBT community, half a century ago, pre- (and even post-) Stonewall, the same students might have called for the dismissal of a political, openly gay professor. While I hesitate to equate the two, the analogy demonstrates one principle point: Without free speech, there can be no progress.

It is important to note that Chapman’s biography, as printed on his blog, states that “views presented on this blog are the authors [sic] personal opinions and do not represent the opinions of my employer.” His Purdue CV links to the blog at the very bottom, in a list of “Favorite Political & Other Sites.” An association clearly exists, but Chapman writes as a private citizen, not as a Purdue professor, and he took measures to ensure this was evident. He also did not publish his views as part of any research or academic scholarship, a salient point.

Purdue responded appropriately — a spokeswoman told InsideHigherEd that “The First Amendment clearly allows [Chapman] to state his opinion. The best response is to speak up, which is exactly what our students and some faculty are doing.”

Should Chapman stay a professor? If his bias becomes evident in his treatment of students, clearly not. But Purdue should not dismiss him for his political beliefs. The last time I checked, public guillotining was so 18th century.

Lindsey Stull is a College senior from Oklahoma City. Her e-mail address is stull@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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