Nathan Schneider writes for America:
Joshua Davis’s two-year-old son has congenital talipes equinovarus, or club foot, and the treatment requires him to wear specialized orthopedic shoes to bed. He recently outgrew his current shoes and needs a new pair. However, the health insurance that covers him comes through his father’s position as an assistant professor of systematic theology at General Theological Seminary, an Episcopal institution in New York City. And his father is among eight of the seminary’s ten full-time faculty who were dismissed on September 30. The seminary has stopped paying into Dr. Davis’s insurance policy. He’s not sure whether he can get a new pair without coverage.
The events that led to this situation are shocking to Dr. Davis and baffling to many outsiders. The sequence of documents from both the so-called “GTS 8” and the seminary’s trustees don’t especially help. The faculty members expressed grievances alleging racist, sexist and otherwise discriminatory behavior from the dean, the Rev. Kurt H. Dunkle. They also claim that he tried to prevent faculty members from meeting together without him.
… The actions of GTS’s trustees could be mistaken for an isolated case of willful misunderstanding, but they are not. The current issue of The Catholic Worker includes a report by Manhattan College professor Joseph Fahey on the state of labor organizing in Catholic higher education, and he documents similarly eggregious tactics to prevent educators from organizing.
Read the rest. Biretta tip: Episcopal Café.
Image of the Close at General Theological Seminary by Beyond My Ken (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
