A professor has reached a settlement agreement with a Wisconsin university after he was suspended for criticizing its shift toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
The Lutheran Church-affiliated Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) suspended Rev. Gregory Schulz, a professor of philosophy, in February 2022 after he published an essay titled “Woke Dysphoria at Concordia,” according to Rev. Schulz’s law firm, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).
In the essay published in Christian News, Rev. Schulz wrote that the university is experiencing dysphoria, or unease because it has been influenced by “Woke-ism,” which he defined as “a potent cocktail of Progressivism, Neo-Pragmatism, and Marxism.”
This unease was aggravated by its search for a new president who the board desired to be “disruptive and transformational,” he wrote, and “demonstrated belief in and commitment to equity and inclusion.”
“These are aggressive-progressive Woke mantras,” he wrote. “Diversity refers to a racialized diversity with unsubstantiated assumptions of white privilege and systemic (national and institutional) racism that form the mythological basis of Harvard’s Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project.
“Inclusion is an aggressive, almost violent version of what used to be known as affirmative action, now construed as racial reparations—again, on the basis of the mythological thinking from Critical Race Theory. Equity is the enforcement of Diversity and Inclusion by any means necessary—excepting by means of thoughtful, reasonable, and honest writing and discussion.”
He wrote that the “woke agenda” rejects authoritative texts such as the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and biblical texts.
“When our BoR [Board of Regents] committees announce their intentions to install a president who exhibits a ‘demonstrated belief in and commitment to equity and inclusion’ and promotes racialized ‘diversity in all its myriad forms,’ they are announcing their plan to disrupt the authority of the biblical text and in this way to transform our university from an institution of Lutheran higher education to ... who knows what,” Rev. Schulz wrote.
Rev. Schulz wrote there could be no systematic racism at the university because of its commitment to “Christ incarnate and His universal justification of all human beings without exception.” However, he noted there is a problem with systemic wokeism that has polluted many aspects of university policy, including accreditation.
Instead of committing to woke ideologies, Rev. Schulz wrote that the next president must be a pastor committed to biblical scripture following Lutheran teaching.
‘Violation of Academic Freedom’
Soon after publishing the essay, Rev. Schulz was locked out of his email account and banned from the campus, WILL reported, despite the university’s promise to guarantee due process and academic freedom.The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) backed Rev. Schulz in a March 2022 letter to then CUW interim president William Cario, saying his suspension “without prior notice or adequate opportunity to respond to the alleged misconduct” and “without any semblance of due process” was a violation of university policy.
“As CUW recognizes, due process is ‘fundamental’ to protecting faculty members’ academic freedom,” FIRE stated.
That academic freedom, however, was jeopardized by the actions of the university, it added
According to WILL, the settlement agreement terms between the now-retired Rev. Schulz are confidential.
In addition to being a confessional pastor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Mr. Schulz is a retired Lt. Colonel with the U.S. Air Force’s Civil Air Force Patrol.
Rev. Schulz is also the author of “Anatomy of an Implosion,” a book that examines how woke ideology, which he identified as a new round of Marxism, has corrupted educational institutions.
‘Profound Legal Consequences’
According to WILL attorney Dan Lennington, in one of the opening blurbs of Rev. Schulz’s book, colleges that impose DEI policies risk facing “profound legal consequences.”“As the United States Supreme Court affirmed in the summer of 2023, American law demands equal treatment of all citizens, especially in the educational setting, where race should never be a factor,” Mr. Lennington said.
“Educational institutions—even private institutions like Concordia—that impose DEI or ‘affirmative action’ policies upon a student body or faculty violate federal law, risk losing federal funding, and face the prospect of punitive damages in federal court.”
Rev. Schulz said the university would be wise in heeding Mr. Lennington’s warning.
“My prayer is that they would, even at this late hour, show the moral integrity and religious fortitude required of any institution worthy of the names Lutheran and university (1) by embracing academic freedom for CUW’s dwindling faculty at its Ann Arbor and Mequon campuses; (2) by honoring professors’ contracts; and (3) by unequivocally rejecting and condemning in their words and deeds all woke Marxist/DEI/racial and social justice programs and aspirations in our schools and universities,” he said.
‘Ideological Litmus Tests’
In a recent op-ed for the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, Prof. Randall Kennedy spoke against forcing a faculty to issue statements in support of DEI.“Candidates for academic positions at Harvard should not be asked to support ideological commitments,” he wrote.
He added that although he’s a progressive “committed to the struggles of social justice,” mandating DEI commitments makes him “wince” because it creates “ideological litmus tests” for job applicants.
“The practice of demanding them ought to be abandoned, both at Harvard and beyond,” he said.
The Epoch Times contacted CUW for comment.
Bill Pan contributed to this report.
