Posted on 05/08/2014 5:28:31 PM PDT by lowbridge
An analytic chemistry professor at public, taxpayer-funded East Carolina University (ECU) has failed miserably in his bizarre effort to prevent students from thanking God in personal statements, which will be read during a departmental graduation ceremony on Friday.
The professor, Eli Hvastkovs, explicitly banned students from giving any credit to God in an email obtained by Campus Reform.
He ordered students to “provide me something written in the third person” in a personal statement that discusses future plans or “thanks someone.”
However, Hvastkovs wrote:
You can’t thank God. I’m sorry about this — and I don’t want to have to outline the reasons why.
-snip
When officials at the Greenville, N.C. school learned about Hvastkovs’s policy banning God in personal statements, they in turn banned Hvastkovs’s policy.
Marilyn Sheerer, the provost at ECU, sent an email to affected students directing them to ignore the professors religious embargo.
“Religious references of any type will not be restricted,” Sheerer’s email said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
They should fire the SOB
I hope that the students will still feel free to tell this professor to go f*&( himself in their statements.
Hooray! There is still some sanity left on the college scene.
Unless you are a Muslim - then you can pull out a prayer rug right on stage
“Here's why the email was sent. We have a departmental graduation ceremony where we read off the graduate's names and they walk across the stage. In the past that's all that they did. I came up with the idea last year to read a little information about the student as they walked up - you know, things like where they will work, if they got into med school, etc. I sent out the email this year, and the personal information I received was a bit different. I had students that wanted to thank long strings of family members, recite poetry, thank God, thank Allah, thank Jesus Christ, etc. In an effort to keep the ceremony moving, I limited the statements to 35 words, but in addition, I received some feedback that some were not comfortable thanking a God(s) on behalf of the students (remember that the students are not speaking - these are not speeches). So that's when I took it upon myself to send the email. I worded it poorly and I sent it out without thinking how it might be read. I did a poor job explaining myself to the Campus Reform reporter that called and hence the Fox News report that you saw. Anyway, in no way did I mean to limit the students' speech. I didn't even consider it to be a big issue since they were not the ones actually speaking the words (this was where I went wrong). But I am not an atheist, I regularly attend church in town, and I am active among the community. I feel terrible that there are ECU alumni that are emailing me and commenting on the message boards bad things about me - and I wanted to say that I am a regular good person, who just sent a poorly worded, poorly thought out email. I am sorry."
But if it’s Allah....it would be perfectly fine.
That’s a horse of a different color.
You mean a camel of a different color!
Pull the other leg, it has bells on it.
You sent it specifically to limit their free speech.
For the love of mike don't lie about it. This was not a poorly worded e-mail you said exactly what you wanted to say. You are backpedaling because you got caught. That is fine but please stop trying to act like you did not say what you said.
This school can expect to endure a tax audit real soon.
Breaking bad for him.
ECU is on a very conservative area. I almost went to school there
I don’t know much about them. I think they’ve been trying to upgrade the athletics program is all.
I always assume each side of the story is about half true... This one is no different if I had to guess. I believe the guy for the most part, but I think his actual reason for trying to squelch it was different than he wants everyone to believe. Personally, I’m guessing people started screeching at him and he didn’t want to deal with it so this was his way of trying to make it go away. Obviously, that didn’t work out well either
Bad assumption.
It is sort of like listening to o-bummer. What do they say in private or semi-private? In this case, in the e-mail. He says quite bluntly, "Don't thank God and don't you dare ask me why."
Now the public statement, "Oh, I didn't mean to tell anyone what not to say."
Really?
That was the point of the entire e-mail.
Guy is a liar.
I would have more respect for him if he came out and said, "I did it because....." then his "I didn't say..."
Since he does not have the courage to stand up for what he believes he is a linguine spine as well.
Next he is going to announce he is running for Senate on the GOP ticket.
Look, I think that he was trying to move things along, but just made it sound a bit restrictive.
It is natural for the students to thank God at graduation, because for many of them graduation is a miracle.
Not much, but some
ROTFLMAO!!!!
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