Academic-Freedom Spat Triggers Wave of Resignations at Religious College

After forcing a psychology professor to disinvite a controversial speaker, Pacific Union College is, for the second time in less than three years, facing turmoil within and departures from its department of psychology and social work, along with renewed questions about its commitment to academic freedom.

The latest uproar at the institution, a small Seventh-day Adventist liberal-arts college in California, began when Aubyn S. Fulton, a professor of psychology, invited Ryan Bell, a former pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church who had become an atheist, to speak at a colloquium.

The invitation drew the ire of Pacific Union’s president, Heather J. Knight, who told Mr. Fulton to disinvite Mr. Bell. She also told him, Mr. Fulton asserted in a Facebook post, that he would be fired at the end of the term.

“The president transmitted to me previously that she would be firing me because of the events surrounding my decision to invite Ryan Bell,” Mr. Fulton wrote. “I believe I referred to that action as the most egregious violation of academic freedom I had ever encountered over my nearly three decades as a member of the PUC faculty. I stand by that judgment.”

In an interview with The Chronicle, Ms. Knight would not confirm whether Mr. Fulton’s social-media post was accurate, but said no decisions had been made to terminate anyone yet. She added that Mr. Fulton had reached out to the college to orchestrate an “amiable separation” from Pacific Union before the posting. She also defended the decision to intervene in the speaker invitation.

“My decision to ask to have Ryan Bell disinvited was not an infringement on Dr. Fulton’s academic-freedom rights, not an act of censorship, not even an attempt to overprotect our PUC students,” she said. “It was a decision to honor the spiritual mission, goals, and aims of our faith-based institution. We are allowed to make those kinds of distinctions in terms of what kind of acts on campus further our religious aim and which do not.”

Mr. Fulton declined to comment for this article, saying talks with the college restricted him from speaking with the news media.

Wave of Resignations

Whatever the details of Mr. Fulton’s fight with the administration, it has triggered a wave of protests and departures in his small department, with three of its seven faculty members saying they’ll leave or step down.

Two longtime members of the department — Charlene Bainum, a professor of psychology, and Fiona E. Bullock, an associate professor of social work — said they had turned in letters of resignation, decrying the current administration’s handling of academic freedom.

“This administration’s efforts to silence, control, and then terminate this professor are in direct contradiction to PUC’s mission statement, and make it impossible to maintain the high educational standards that our students expect and deserve,” wrote Ms. Bainum in her resignation letter, obtained by The Chronicle.

Ms. Bullock echoed those sentiments in her letter, saying she “can no longer in good faith work for an institution that does not support or encourage the level of academic freedom needed to educate competent social-work students, ready to meet the diverse needs of vulnerable clients.”

Ms. Bainum and Ms. Bullock have both been with the department for more than 20 years. Following their resignations, the department chair, A. Gregory Schneider, informed college leaders that he would be stepping down as chair.

“In view of administration’s dissent having now dismantled our senior faculty, I see no choice but step aside as chair so that the president and her designated authorities may reconstruct the department according to their alternative vision,” Mr. Schneider said in an email to The Chronicle. “I have experienced the actions of the current PUC administration since Fall 2013 as signaling a clear dissent from the principles upon which my colleagues and I have built our community and its programs.”

Mr. Schneider’s mention of 2013 was in reference to a controversy, involving many of the same people, that roiled the department that fall, when Mr. Fulton had offered a class that challenged the church’s stance that premarital sex is wrong. The class elicited a response from Ms. Knight, who told the professor that he was facing termination because of insubordination and failing to uphold church teachings, Mr. Fulton said at the time. The controversy ended with Mr. Fulton keeping his job after he and Ms. Knight succeeded in “hashing it out.” The department chair at the time stepped down, citing the dispute as a key part of his decision.

Now, nearly three years later, the trust between the department and the president has never truly healed, Mr. Schneider said.

The resigning professors pointed to the leadership’s interference in their classrooms. “We are limited because our handbook doesn’t allow us to speak critically,” Ms. Bainum said. “Individuals who have tried to challenge it have been called into the principal’s office, so to say.”

Ms. Bullock agreed, saying that the limitations on academic freedom had made it difficult to discuss controversial topics with students, and that support for critical thinking and academic freedom wasn’t there.

Ms. Knight rejected the allegations of a breach of academic freedom, saying that no professor, other than Mr. Fulton, had ever been spoken to about what he or she was teaching.

“No one can say that the president or anyone told them they can or cannot do anything in their classes,” she said. “This was the flash-point incident that happened, and they’ve tried to blow it out of proportion as a kind of, I want to say, cloak — to say it’s an academic-freedom violation. It’s not. It’s the administration playing the role it’s been hired to play to honor our mission.”

The administration had also been preparing for a transition in the department, Ms. Knight said, because officials were aware before the latest controversy that Mr. Schneider and Ms. Bainum planned to retire soon. Now, she said, they are using those plans as a chance to protest. (Mr. Schneider has said he plans to retire next year, but Ms. Bainum told The Chronicle she had planned to teach for another three to five years.)

For Ms. Bullock, who had been teaching at Pacific Union for more than 25 years, the decision to leave didn’t come easily.

“We’ve given our professional career to Pacific Union, and the intent isn’t to do it any harm,” she said. “But there comes a point where it just isn’t a good fit anymore.”