A Florida Professor Lost His Job After Complaints About His Lessons on Racial Justice

A professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a private Christian institution in Florida, had his contract terminated this week after a parent complained to the university president about a racial-justice unit in his course. The termination of Samuel Joeckel’s position, which he’d held since 2002, touches on issues of academic freedom that have become more fraught as tensions increasingly surround the teaching of race. It also illustrates differing views of what it means to hew to Christian values in higher education.