New York City, N.Y., Jun 20, 2010 / 06:02 am
The controversy over Marquette University’s offer and subsequent withdrawal of a deanship to a homosexual university professor helps show the present conflict in Catholic academia between status and Catholic identity, one writer on Catholic higher education says.
In a Friday essay in the Wall Street Journal, Anne Hendershott, a professor at The King’s College in New York, discussed the case of Jodi O’Brien, the Seattle University professor who was initially offered the deanship of Marquette’s College of Arts and Sciences.
According to Hendershott, the deanship was withdrawn not because O’Brien is homosexual but because she showed a “minimal” publication record.
Hendershott, author of the book “Status Envy” on the politics of Catholic higher education, said that although O’Brien’s supporters maintain that she is “the victim of homophobia,” critics of the job offer cited not her sexual orientation but rather her writings which disparage Catholic teachings on marriage, sexuality and the family.