Here we go again ...

It seemed like we were getting somewhere on the "homosexuality issue" when classes finished last semester. We’d had a huge, well-attended forum in the Science Center, and there was a discussion group (the Listening and Facilitation Team, LiFT) formed to try and work out exactly how EMU was going to treat faculty members who came out of the closet.

Apparently none of this meant we made any actual progress, though, because here we are, at the beginning of a new year, watching the summary dismissal of another EMU employee who turned out to be a homosexual.

What is frustrating about the dismissal of Associate Professor Thomas Arbaugh is not so much that EMU is once again making a personnel decision based upon principles which are far from unanimously supported on campus, but that Arbaugh was apparently trying to follow the rules and ended up losing his position anyway. He read the staff lifestyle agreement to mean that he could work at EMU provided he remained celibate. The administration defined ‘celibate’ differently. But wasn’t the point of all the brouhaha last semester to come up with a clearly defined policy on just this issue?

The dismissal of Arbaugh looks like an echo of the policies of our departed President Lapp. I recall attending an early meeting of LiFT at which Lapp was asked how he would interpret the notorious statement by the Board of Trustees, which might have given him the authority to fire staff who merely questioned university policy. Lapp replied that he had not decided how to interpret the statement, and had no intention of coming to a decision until a situation arose which required him to do so. He said that he wanted LiFT to suggest an interpretation, though he never promised to take that suggestion. It was this vagueness that made the Board’s statement look more like a threat than a simple affirmation of longstanding policy.

Even those who feel the Bible condemns homosexual practice should agree that it isn’t fair to be this vague about university policies that decide who can and cannot be employed here. EMU has a responsibility to make its stance (whatever that may be) as clear as possible to potential staff and faculty members, if for no other reason than to prevent situations in which profs are dismissed after the first week of classes.