P. Z. Myers needing a designated logician on the Gaskell case

Oh my, it looks like we have really upset Internet atheist P. Z. Myers once again. At least that is what I conclude from all the snarling in his response to my opinion piece today in the Lexington Herald-Leader on the University of Kentucky's Gaskell Affair over at his blog "Pharyngula."

But maybe it's not a sign of his being upset. He does, after all do this all the time. Maybe its just a part of his genetic make-up to act this way. Or possibly it was something in his upbringing. I have heard of young children taken when they were young and raised by wolves. Although, in Myers' case, I'm not sure even the wolves would have taken him.

Myers' post seems to have been penned on the principle that a sufficient number of epithets and pejorative adjectives at some point constitute an argument.

No, wait. I'm sorry. I may have spoken too soon. After removing several layers of vitriol, and dusting away a large quantity of vindictiveness, I think I may have discovered some actual attempts to make a logical case against my arguments. Okay, so they're not exactly impressive, but let's see what we can make of them.

Here is Myer's main argument, such as it is:

He claims that the reason Gaskell was not hired was religious oppression, overt discrimination against him for the fact of being a Christian. A university in America would have virtually no faculty or staff if they had an unspoken policy of discrimination against the Christian majority in this country; there were believers on that committee, I'm sure, just as there are believers on every committee I've ever worked with at my universities, and the atheists are usually the minority. So to claim that this committee thought that the idea of a candidate going to church was grounds for exclusion is absurd.

Does Myers really believe that you have to have a policy of discrimination "against the Christian majority in this country" to run afoul of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Does he think the only way someone can sue for racial discrimination is because a university has a "policy," spoken or unspoken, against a whole racial minority?

Who's being absurd?

You violate the Civil Rights Act when you discriminate against one person. If you're black and a university discriminates against you, you don't have to prove there's a general conspiracy against blacks. All you have to prove is that they discriminated against you because you're black.

Let's just be glad Myers isn't an attorney. And for crying out loud keep him away from racial discrimination issues. No telling how many African Americans have been filing false discrimination cases.

The case showing UK discriminated against Gaskell because he was an evangelical Christian was a dream case for an attorney. The e-mail documents in the case referring to him as "potentially evangelical" by one committee member and other e-mails from other members of the committee with first hand experience of what went on alleging that he was, in fact, being discriminated against are about as hot as smoking guns get. It just don't get any better than this--or worse, depending on your perspective.

Gaskell's employment was questioned, not because he is a Christian, but because he is an evangelical Christian who used his authority as an astronomer to mislead the public about biology.

Where? What precisely did Gaskell say about biology in any professional capacity that was professionally out of bounds?

In fact, the whole rest of his post goes on under the assumption that Gaskell held some view in his professional capacity that violates basic tenets of biology. But he never says what this is.

He wasn't turned away because he was a Christian, but because he actively uses Christianity as an excuse to peddle falsehoods and doubts. And the objection wasn't to the "Christian" part, but to the "false doubts" part.

Myers' appears to be completely ignorant of this case. The e-mail from Sally Shafer that must have had the UK administration scared enough about the eventual outcome of this case to want to settle didn't say that Gaskell was a "potential peddler of falsehoods and doubts." It said he was a "potential evangelical."

That makes Sally Shafter a potential bigot. And it makes Myers' a potential ostrich, sticking his head in the sand and ignoring the actual evidence in this case. If this case doesn't constitute religious discrimination, then nothing does.

He should have just stuck with the epithets. They would have been more logically compelling.

My op ed on UK's Gaskell Affair in today's Herald-Leader

My article on the Gaskell Affair at University of Kentucky was published in today's Lexington Herald-Leader.

It highlights the university's doublespeak on diversity, as evidenced by its actions toward Gaskell, who was up for the position of observatory director at UK until it was discovered he was "potentially evangelical."

Why is the Kentucky Human Rights Commission sitting on Martin Gaskell's religious discrimination complaint?

Martin Gaskell, who has sued University of Kentucky for religious discrimination, filed a complaint with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights in May of 2008 and still has heard nothing. Exactly how many years does it take for the Human Rights Commission to process a religious discrimination complaint?

While the Human Rights Commission, which is sponsored by the state and paid for by taxpayer dollars, can't find the time to answer religious discrimination complaints, it seems to have plenty of time on its hands to engage in liberal political advocacy. While Gaskell's complaint gathers dust in the Commission's inbox, they were hard at work fashioning a resolution calling on the Kentucky General Assembly to include sexual orientation in the state’s civil rights statute.

The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights isn’t chartered to lobby state government; it’s chartered to enforce the Kentucky Civil Rights Act. It needs to lose the taxpayer funded political activism and get on the stick.

While the Human Rights Commission was working feverishly to advance a liberal political agenda, cobwebs were forming on this man’s religious discrimination complaint. If the Civil Rights Commission can’t find the time to deal with religious discrimination, which is part of the current civil rights laws, why is it asking for an expansion if its mission?

A court recently gave a green light for Gaskell’s suit to move ahead, and it the suit is expected to come to trial on February 8. The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is a tax-payer funded organization chartered to combat discrimination.

Gaskell ran the student observatory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is widely published in the field of astronomy. Internal UK e-mails suggest he was the most qualified candidate for the position of Observatory Director at UK until it became known that he was a Christian. When this fact was discovered, a number of staff and faculty conspired to prevent him from getting the position, according to Gaskell.

When Gaskell failed to receive any response from the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, he filed suit.

He shouldn't have had to.

Where was the KY Human Rights Commission on the Gaskell Affair?

The Associated Press is on the story of the Scientific Inquisition at the University of Kentucky:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — University of Kentucky scientists wondered to each other in internal e-mails if an astronomer's Christian faith would interfere with a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory, according to court records in the man's discrimination case set for trial in February.

Even though Martin Gaskell says he is not a creationist, he claims he was passed over for the job at UK's MacAdam Student Observatory three years ago because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of the theory of evolution.

While we're all marveling at the intolerance of a university that preaches Tolerance and Diversity but practices Intolerance and enforces Uniformity, let us take a moment ask where Kentucky Human Rights Commission was during all this.

According to the deposition of Gaskell, it was revealed that, on the advice of his attorneys, he had filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, but never heard anything back. Why does the Human Rights Commission have plenty of time to use its statutory status to lobby for left wing social causes but has no time to bother with religious discrimination complaints from people like Gaskell?

More on UK's Gaskell Affair: What a tangled web they're weaving

Well, the defenders of Scientific Correctness have themselves into another fine logical mess.

They are claiming once again that Intelligent Design is a religious, rather than a scientific position. So far the claim has served them well. It allows them to simply dismiss it without actually doing any intellectual heavy lifting. They can simply raise their noses high, sniff audibly, and utter, in a dismissing tone, vague things about the integrity of science.

But the Gaskell affair at the University of Kentucky has got them all tied up in logical knots. Gaskell was the best qualified of seven candidates for the post of observatory director at UK until one member of the search committee got wind that he was a Christian, at which point some members of the committee--and apparently some faculty in the biology department--began a campaign to smear his reputation in order to deny him employment. They ended up hiring the third best candidate for the position rather than have a Christian on staff in one of their science departments.

It started when Sally Shafer, a UK staffer apparently in charge of keeping the university religion-free, Googled information on Gaskell and discovered he had given a lecture at UK in 1997 on science and religion, in which he went over the long list of Christian scientists in history and said that he adhered to the majority position in science that the universe--and the earth--were very old. He went on to say that, although he accepted natural selection, there were some unanswered questions about it.

Shafer, apparently appalled that Gaskell would discuss religion and science in the same lecture, and clearly disturbed that he had used the two words anywhere in the same vicinity, swung into action and reported Gaskell to the search committee as (brace yourself, this is strong language) a "potential evangelical."

Several other appalled committee members began calling him a "creationist" and "Intelligent Design" advocate, although the first is certainly untrue, and the second is not entirely clear from the record. In any case, the consequence was that he was passed over, even though, according to court documents, he was clearly the most qualified candidate. Gaskell then sued the university for religious discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But what is interesting is the reasons now being given to justify his treatment at the hands of UK's Scientific Inquisition.

According to the critics of Intelligent Design, ID is a religious position, not a scientific one. But if it is a religious position, then those who hold it cannot be discriminated against on the basis that they hold it under the Civil Rights Act. If ID is a religious position, then its advocates should not be allowed in university science departments. But if it is a religious position, then it is discrimination not to hire them on that basis.

Oooh. Not a good dilemma to be in. But the critics--on this blog anyway--just go on blindly ignoring the inconsistency.

Again, it is not clear that Gaskell holds to an Intelligent Design position. We're just granting it for the sake of argument here.

If Intelligent Design is a religious position, then Gaskell cannot be denied employment on the basis of holding believing it. And if it is scientific, then he should not be denied employment for holding it.

Go ahead Maniacs, tell me how you get out of this one.

The University of Kentucky's "Gaskell Affair": Further adventures in intellectual "Diversity" at UK

Expect anytime now to see the following lines chiseled in stone on the wall outside the University of Kentucky's Ministry of Truth building:

Uniformity is Diversity
Favoritism is Equality
Bigotry is Tolerance

If you are a left-wing ideologue applying for a faculty position at the University of Kentucky, you have a comfortable and welcoming place awaiting you in the "Gender and Women's Studies" department. But if you have what the University of Kentucky thinks look suspiciously like, ... ahem, a religion, you might just be refused a job.

At the university that preaches "Diversity" at every available opportunity, a leading candidate was turned down for the position of Observatory Director at UK when, after seeing a discussion on a personal website, UK officials determined he was "potentially evangelical." The University was sued for religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

UK denies it discriminated based on religion, but the judge points out that the "record contains substantial evidence," said the judge, "that Gaskell was a leading candidate for the position until the issue of his religion (as Gaskell calls it) or his scientific position (as UK calls it) became an issue." And it is pretty clear, from the evidence, which of the two--religion or his scientific position--it is.

A paper he wrote religion and scientific issues and a similar talk he gave at UK started a discussion among search committee members about how his religious beliefs might affect his scientific views. Even though Gaskell nowhere indicates he is a creationist (and in fact gives indications that he at least believes the commonly accepted scientific evidence about the age of the earth), several committee members and other staff decided, on the mere basis of talking about science in the context of religion, decided he was.

Sally Shafer, one of the committee members sent colleagues a set of websites and links having to do with Gaskell, concluding, "clearly this man is complex and likely fascinating to talk with--but potentially evangelical." Several others admitted that it was factor or a "theme" in the decision, which is prohibited in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fact, even the search committee chair was exercised over this. Here is the text of an e-mail sent by Professor Thomas Troland, to Professor Michael Cavagnero, the chair of UK's department of physics and astronomy, before the decision was made:

It has become clear to me that there is virtually no way Gaskell will be offered the job despite his qualifications which stand far above those of any other applicant. Other reasons will be given for this choice when we meet Tuesday. In the end, however, the real reason why we will not offer him the job is because of his religious beliefs in matters that are unrelated to astronomy or to any of the duties specified for this position ... If Martin were not so superbly qualified, so breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience, then our decision would be much simper. We could easily choose another applicant, and we could content ourselves with the idea that Martin's religious beliefs played little role in our decision. However, this is not the case. As it is, no objective observer could possibly believe that we excluded Martin on any other basis than religious.

The judge mentions that Troland "subsequently retracted these comments to some extent," although he doesn't explain in detail. But he does say that these comments "remain direct evidence if religious discrimination." And, anyway, the remaining evidence would probabloy be sufficient to prove it in court.

That's how "Diversity" works at the University of Kentucky. If has Gaskell had only had posts on his website about "Queer Theory" or "Black male-bodied drag queens" (a particular favorite down the road at the University of Louisville), he could have passed the Diversity test at UK.