The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Pacific Justice Institute have sued California’s San Jose City College on behalf of a biology professor who was fired after answering a student’s question about heredity and homosexuality.
During a human heredity course, a student asked June Sheldon to explain how heredity affects homosexual behavior. Sheldon said that while one theory in the nature-versus-nurture debate mentions a correlation between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males, the textbook also says homosexual behavior may be influenced by both genes and the environment.
The school launched an investigation after a student complained that Sheldon’s comments were “offensive and unscientific.”
“College officials have stripped a professor of the right to discuss competing theories and ideas in the classroom, something which represents the foundation of higher education,” said David Hacker, ADF litigation staff counsel. “The textbook itself points out that the causes of homosexual behavior are a subject of debate in the scientific community. This teacher did nothing more than explain this fact.”
