Sissy Bradford was an adjunct criminology professor at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and she was scheduled to teach four classes this fall, but she's been told by the University that she's been fired. This comes after weeks of harassments and threats of violence -- including implicit death threats. Why?
It all started when Sissy Bradford challenged a tower with large crosses on it. The tower was on private land, but it was near the campus entrance, had the University seal on it, was built with public funds, and the owners intended to sell it to the school. So at Texas A&M University, defending church/state separation apparently produces death threats and gets you fired.
Does this sound like an institution that is even remotely concerned with learning, morality, or scholarship?
On November 27 Bradford received an email that asked: "As a professor, do you have the right to live?" before the author rambled on to describe Bradford being sealed in a coffin with a cross inside of it. "After that you will reign with your father satan," the message continued, before suggesting that she should -- of all things -- wed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
On top of the hateful emails, Bradford was waylaid on campus by a local TV news film crew (aided by one of her students, who she said was interning at the station). She began to feel not very safe on campus. But don't look for signs of her distress in campus police filings dating back to November.
While she showed up to report the harassment, officers at the University Police Department refused to take her statements, she told the Current.
Source: San-Antonio Current
Police who refuse to take statements from someone getting death threats make themselves complicit in the threats. They aren't merely "no better than" the people making the threats, they are actually much worse because it's their job to protect people from such acts. They don't deserve to be "police" -- they don't even deserve to be minimum-wage security guards. They should be in prison. Administrators who allow them to keep working should be locked up in the cells next to them.
Where the police seem to have failed to uphold even the most rudimentary level of professionalism and ethics, Sissy Bradford's students stood up for her and worked to try to protect her by walking her to her car. It's reminiscent of what people have to do at abortion clinics -- escort the patients -- and I don't think that the similarity is entirely coincidental.
It's yet another case where Christians threaten violence and terrorism which the government refuses to stand up against and so private citizens must volunteer to protect the very essence of civilization. And, as you might expect, those students became targets of Christian terrorist threats as well:
Meanwhile, other students appear to have shared in Bradford's harassment, as well. When Kirsten Verdi (who graduated from A&M-SA in December with a degree in psychology) spoke up in Bradford's defense in one class she said she was told by a fellow student simply, "You need to be beaten." [Note: this part of the news story is apparently in error - see update below]
"I felt protective of her because I couldn't believe what I was reading all the time. I just couldn't believe what was going on. Some of these responses were very disturbing."
"It got so bad that I complained over and over again," said Verdi. "Call me hypersensitive or whatever, but it got to the point that I was afraid to go to my own graduation in December because of some of the statements people made. Maybe I took it too much to heart because I felt like I was being attacked as well indirectly."
Eventually, Sissy Bradford was allowed to make an official complaint, but nothing whatsoever seems to have been done about it:
After taking her complaint higher up to A&M at College Station, Bradford said she was finally able to file a statement with UPD on December 5. In a two-page Voluntary Statement, she states, "I am being stalked & harassed & threatened by student(s) & community members because I am not a Christian. There exists a clear & prolonged pattern of unwanted communication, contact, threats, & invasion of privacy."
I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd ever want to attend Texas A&M in any capacity. There's just no protection for people who take unpopular positions; on the contrary, it looks like they can be subjected to harassment and threats then ultimately gotten rid of. It's not the least bit moral yet it's clearly driven by self-righteous, conservative Christianity.
Update: The threat against Kirsten Verdi mentioned above apparently did occur, but at a much earlier time and so not in connection to this issue. The original reporter apparently conflated multiple events, though what was said and done did make Kirsten Verdi feel unsafe.
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