Posted on 12/10/2005 9:13:23 AM PST by rface
Kansas University professor Paul Mirecki said he’s hired an attorney and is ready to go to the mat with KU and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
“If I have to sue, I will,” he said.
[ see following FR posts for some history ]
Professor Mirecki now mum on alleged beating: Alleged beating by "Christians" a hoax?
WHAT HAPPENED TO PAUL MIRECKI? (Phony Hate Crime Alert) by Michelle Malkin ^
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Mirecki said he’s angry because KU didn’t back him after religious conservatives attacked him for his plan to teach a course dealing with intelligent design.
Mirecki became a political lightning rod after his new course was announced and his derisive comments on an Internet message board about conservative Christians and Catholics were later widely distributed.
His planned spring course was canceled. Still, some legislators said they would call Mirecki and KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway on the carpet for a public hearing.
On Wednesday the university announced Mirecki had resigned as chairman of the religious studies department. But Friday, Mirecki told the Journal-World he was forced to step down. Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki displays on Friday the bruises that he says came from a beating two men gave him early Monday. He says the university has not been supportive of him through his ordeal.
Photo by Richard Gwin
Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki displays on Friday the bruises that he says came from a beating two men gave him early Monday. He says the university has not been supportive of him through his ordeal.
“The University penalized me and denied me my Constitutionally protected right to speak and express my mind,” he wrote in a statement prepared for the newspaper. “I’ve become radioactive and the University’s administrators won’t support me.”
Mirecki said his career was ruined and that “speaking engagements that I had lined up now have been canceled.”
On Friday, he displayed two black eyes and a bruise on his arm that he said came from a beating administered early Monday by two unknown men who had followed him in a pickup truck as he drove to breakfast. He said his attackers mentioned the controversy.
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.”
Lt. Kari Wempe, a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, released a statement Friday night that said the sheriff’s office had not seen a copy of Mirecki’s prepared statement to the media.
Click here to access the link to the following:
Evolution in Kansas: Recent coverage
* 6News video: Mirecki hires lawyer to look into resignation (12-09-05) * Mirecki press release (.pdf) * Professor blasts KU, sheriff’s investigation (12-10-05) * Embattled KU professor has long history with religion (12-10-05) * Conservative made postings public (12-10-05) * KU provost says ID course needed (12-09-05) * Pastors condemn attack (12-08-05) * 6News video: Mirecki resigns from KU department post (11-30-05) * Mirecki resigns leadership position (12-08-05) * Kansas ranks last in science (12-08-05) * Police report (.pdf) * 6News video: More information released in alleged Mirecki attack (12-06-05) * Mirecki mum on details of beating (12-07-05) * 6News video: Mirecki hospitalized after beating (12-05-05) * Mirecki treated after roadside beating (12-06-05) * K-State, others tackling intelligent design in classroom (12-04-05) * KU could face heat in Topeka (12-03-05) * Conservative critic known for inflammatory speech (12-03-05) * 6News video: KU professors make statement about academic freedom (12-02-05) * Intelligent design course canceled (12-02-05) * 6News video: Intelligent design class at KU canceled (12-01-05) * Several of Mirecki's Yahoo! group posts (3.3 MB PDF) * More coverage * RSS LJWorld.com's Evolution in Kansas coverage
“Until we are provided with a document from Mr. Mirecki, we are not able to comment on it. Our agency continues to thoroughly investigate this crime against Mr. Mirecki,” Wempe said.
Mirecki said he has hired Lawrence attorney David Brown to represent him.
Hemenway said he had been told by other administrators that Mirecki stepped down from his chairman’s post. He said KU has supported Mirecki.
“Professor Mirecki still has a job at the University of Kansas,” Hemenway said. “That would appear to be support for his rights to his tenured position and his rights to free speech ... The university deplores the fact that he was apparently attacked. We’ve said so.”
Hemenway also said he had been told that KU police called Mirecki to see how they might help him.
But Mirecki said the university had done little to back him and that he was fired as department chairman because he had the “temerity to challenge the power of the religious right in Kansas and the university capitulated to demands of the conservative minority.”
He said he felt let down by the administration and colleagues who sought his resignation Tuesday.
He said he had no choice but to sign the resignation letter, which was typed on stationery from the office of Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Mirecki said he lived under threat of another attack.
“If the University doesn’t support me, I could be in more physical danger because the University is not standing up to the religious extremists,” he said.
He said the number of threatening letters and e-mails has increased since the chancellor called Mirecki’s online comments “repugnant and vile” in a public statement.
He said he also had received more than 2,500 e-mails and letters from academics around the world supporting him.
“The University has a duty, as a protector of intellectual honesty and debate, to support its teaching staff when controversial issues are raised,” Mirecki said. “Now those on the right are emboldened and feel they can take this a step higher.
“At this point, I just want this to be over.” Comments
What do you know...'crickets'.
A blow to the nose can make both eyes turn black.
(snort!) I think he bumped his upper lip on the steering wheel--and saw an opportunity. And he's got a PhD from Harvard, so he can't possibly be intelligent.
Accompanied with a lot of blood.
I saw that. Looks like the black shadow stuff football players use.
The blood's under the skin--you'd need a doc or a nurse, but I believe this kind of an impact the blood would follow the natural depressions in the structure of the face and sinus cavities. Around the eyes, around the nose, even down the "smile wrinkle" between mouth and nose.
Wouldn't his eyes be a little bloodshot at least?
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