Academic Attack?
Professor says PCUSA-backed seminary sacked him for evangelical views
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman , August 24, 2012
An associate professor is fighting back after he was fired by the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) for what he says amounted to discrimination against his evangelical beliefs.
On July 5, Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, a noted Dead Sea Scrolls expert, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that ITC officials “harassed me for some time by disagreeing with my conservative religious ideals, intimidating me, slandering my character, giving me poor evaluations and changing student grades from failing to passing with no merit. Hopkins
Hopkins further claimed that the crusade to terminate his employment with the Atlanta-based seminary was led by department chair Dr. Margaret Aymer, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister noted for her liberal views concerning homosexuality and the Bible.
Hopkins said Aymer pushed to have him fired after she found out a guest speaker invited to campus by Hopkins had given a student a book on sexuality and the Bible written by Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, a well-known scholarly opponent of same-sex marriage.
Book brouhaha
On Feb. 21, Dr. Alice Brown-Collins, regional director of Black Campus Ministry for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) spoke to a weekly prayer meeting of conservative ITC students facilitated by Hopkins.
Following the meeting, Brown-Collins offered students the opportunity to take copies of resources she had earlier arrayed on a table. At least one student took a copy of Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics.
“Whenever I brought in speakers, they would always give something away,” Hopkins told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This was just one book that was given away, he added, pointing out that, while the book “opposed homosexual-Christian lifestyles” the topic of sexuality in the Bible “wasn’t my subject.”
The day after Brown-Collins’ speech, Aymer learned that the student had received the book. Hopkins said Aymer later “interrogated” him about his association with InterVarsity and called Gagnon’s book “homophobic literature.”
Aymer claimed that dissemination of Gagnon’s book “is a violation of the code of ethics [and] a question of institutional effectiveness.” Although Hopkins was only present in the same room when the student took the free book and otherwise had nothing to do with the incident, Aymer states that Hopkins also violated ITC’s code of ethics.
The code states that ITC provides “a safe physical and psychological environment for all members of the community regardless of one’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, ability, or any other characteristic protected by law.”
The department chair claims that allowing an IVCF representative to speak on campus created an “unsafe psychological environment” for gay students and that Gagnon’s book could impede the seminary’s “institutional effectiveness.”
“The incident involving my book appears to be the basis for the seminary’s vendetta against him,” Gagnon said. “It seems that, for Aymer, the very fact that my book would be on campus was unacceptable,” he added.
However, ITC students already had easy access to The Bible and Homosexual Practice through the library the seminary shares with Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Spelman College.
A search of the library’s catalog reveals that the library, which can easily be accessed via ITC’s website, currently holds a copy of Gagnon’s text.
During the meeting, Hopkins asked Aymer if she favored book banning. According to Hopkins, Aymer told the 42-year-old, untenured professor that the situation may have put his job at risk.
Aymer contends she did not threaten Hopkins’ tenure but “conveyed to Dr. Hopkins that [ITC’s tenure committee] is supposed to conduct a four-year review on him as a pre-tenured faculty person in his probationary period.”
After the meeting, Hopkins said Aymer ramped up a full assault to oust him, writing negative reviews about Hopkins’ work and contacting colleagues and theologians about him, after Hopkins filed three formal grievances – grievances he said ITC ignored for three months.
Aymer continued her attacks, Hopkins said, by criticizing the textbooks he used.
“She said none of the books gave the current scholarly view of the New Testament,” Hopkins said in an interview with World on Campus. “She said I needed more books conducive to womanist theology, post-colonial theology or LGBT theology.”
To this point, Hopkins had established an exemplary record since being hired by ITC in 2008.
Hopkins earned his doctorate in Biblical studies from the University of Manchester in England. An ITC publication introduced Hopkins as “an international Bible scholar and the only (known) African American expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran Studies.”
In 2009, the administration asked Hopkins to deliver the Charles B. Copher Lecture. ITC touts the lecture as enabling “faculty to be on the cutting-edge of their respective disciplines. The presentation occurs during the ITC Charter Week and is subsequently published by the [ITC’s journal].” Hopkins presented, “Looking Back to Step Forward: What The Dead Sea Scrolls Teach The Black Church.” Aymer participated in the lecture series along with Hopkins. The seminary, in a press release for the lecture series, also called Hopkins “a committed family man of faith.”
‘Summarily dismissed’
Hopkins’ experience with ITC reached its peak on July 3, when administrators met with Hopkins and gave him a letter of termination.
“I was summarily dismissed without any notice or warning or opportunity to learn of or answer any complaints that may have been brought against me,” he said, adding that he assumed ITC would instead respond to his filed grievances.
Hopkins’ attorney and father Joe Hopkins said ITC had breached their contract with his son. “They ignored their stated procedures for termination, tenure and grievance.”
According to Gagnon, ITC President Ronald Peters told the author that he had misunderstood Ayer’s position regarding Hopkins.
“Peters responded … there was no way that [Aymer] would limit Dr. Hopkins’ academic freedom over the homosexuality issue,” Gagnon said, adding, “yet I already had unimpeachable evidence from Aymer herself that this was the central reason for the disturbance.”
Although both Aymer and Peters have so far not responded to requests for comment on the matter, Peters did release a letter to the American Association of University Professors in which he claims Hopkins’ allegations are a “misrepresentation of fact.”
“Dr. Hopkins’ assertions must be affirmed, at best, as disappointing remarks of a disgruntled former employee,” Peters stated.
Hopkins told World on Campus that his firing was indicative of a deeply rooted issue undergirding ITC.
“The faculty tends to be very liberal,” he said. “But the stude
nt body mainly comes from the black church, so it’s conservative and orthodox. There’s tension there.”
To date, ITC has refused to participate in an EEOC-requested mediation session.
No stranger to PCUSA
Aymer is no stranger to controversy – especially within the PCUSA. Aymer served on the Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Unions and Christian Marriage, a group which reported to the 219th General Assembly.
The committee’s report recommended that the denomination redefine marriage to allow for same-sex unions. Some members claimed Aymer used bullying tactics and allegedly grew enraged when the committee failed to reach a unanimous decision.
“I had the distinct displeasure of serving with her on the [special committee],” the Rev. Bill Teng wrote in a recent comment on Gagnon’s Facebook page.
“She used exactly the same bullying tactics in trying to silence us, but God gave us grace to neutralize her which certainly infuriated her,” he wrote.
In 2006, Aymer penned an essay for a book about the Bible and same-gender sexuality published by the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a group that has advocated inclusion of gay and lesbian people into the PCUSA for the past 15 years.
“Questions about same-sex relations simply are not very important to writers trying to pass on the Good News,” Aymer said.
In 2011, Aymer wrote a response to the “Deathly Ill” letter, released by the Fellowship of Presbyterians. The letter called for the formation of a new Reformed body, which would eventually become ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
Aymer opposed the group’s goals and said the PCUSA had arrived at that point in history “by suffering the creation of fellowships (like The Layman) in opposition to the Confession of 1967 and silently enduring the refusal of churches to live into their financial obligations to the whole denomination.”
“She epitomizes the absolute intolerance of the homosexualist agenda on campuses today, even ‘Christian’ seminaries,” Gagnon said.
‘With the stroke of a pen’
For Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, his ordeal demonstrates how quickly a scholar’s career path can be derailed due to an increasingly politicized seminary environment.
“Because of one day, one book, one disagreement, or perceived disagreement, his career can be destroyed with the stroke of a pen, without any thought to the significant contribution he can and has made to theological education,” Joe Hopkins told World on Campus.
ITC is an ecumenical consortium of about 450 students that includes Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary (PCUSA), Gammon Theological Seminary (United Methodist Church), The Baptist School of Theology, Turner Theological Seminary (African Methodist Episcopal), Phillips School of Theology (Christian Methodist Episcopal) Charles H. Mason Theological Seminary (Church of God in Christ). The seminary is part of the Atlanta University Center.
In December 2011, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools denied reaffirmation of accreditation to ITC and placed the seminary on warning for 12 months citing a “failure to comply with commission policies and procedures.” The accrediting body could remove accreditation completely in December if ITC fails to comply.
1 Comment. Leave new
I was a student of Dr. Hopkins. He is a good man and exceptional scholar.
Dr. Aymer is a bully. I support Dr. Hopkins and wish him well.
Orrin Cowley class of 2013