Christian universities are feeling the pressure to choose a side in the ongoing culture wars over “wokeness.”
The issue of “wokeness” has only grown over time as the term has become a core rhetorical point in the culture wars, presidential elections and debates over social issues. According to Google Trends, the term “woke” began spiking in interest in mid-2020 and early 2021, hitting an all-time high in March of this year and slowly decreasing after July.
The term also has grown more controversial over time, with major political candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis embracing it as a tool to galvanize his fans and define his approach to diminishing progressive causes within his state.
The result of the ongoing cultural crusade against “wokeness” has meant college campuses have become battlegrounds for these ideas, with many Christian college campuses feeling pressured to take a stand on issues such as race, diversity and sexuality. Political incentives and enrollment incentives exist on both sides of the aisle to encourage efforts toward addressing racial issues in the classroom and to crack down on them for the sake of maintaining a conservative image.
Before the current raging debate about free speech on campuses in light of the war in Gaza, the ill-defined “woke” label was wreaking havoc and misunderstanding.
Campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University
Palm Beach Atlantic University vs. Sam Joeckel
Sam Joeckel is a former professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Palm Beach, Fla. He is currently teaching English courses for the Institute for Academic and Career English, following his ouster from his non-tenured position at PBAU earlier this year.
He says he is glad to work now in an institution where he “can discuss racial justice freely” and doesn’t “have to hide the fact that I’m LGBTQ-affirming.”
Sam Joeckel
“The history of the Civil Rights movement and racial justice is important to teach —especially at a Christian university,” he said. “I felt compelled to teach it because if you call yourself a Christian, racial justice is a biblical mandate that is not only important but necessary. Jesus emphasizes the concern for the least of these, those oppressed and marginalized. I think those utterances relate to the history of racial justice in this country and the current state of things.”
At the time of his employment, Joeckel was teaching a composition course for first-year students that involved writing a research paper. Taking the liberty to decide which topics to assign, he made one of his four units into a racial justice unit.
Joeckel says on Feb. 15 he was approached by his provost and dean and notified his job renewal was being delayed pending review of the racial justice unit, which the school claimed was indoctrinating students.
“The first question I asked was what was wrong with my racial-justice unit. The dean said the concern was that I was ‘indoctrinating students.’ When I asked the dean to elaborate, he did not give me a clear answer. We did have to cut that meeting short, though, because the dean needed to prepare for an appearance of Gov. Ron DeSantis on campus. And I just laughed because I couldn’t believe the dean didn’t see the connection.”
Joeckel says he and his colleagues had noticed the university taking a sharp turn toward right-wing politics. He now believes his employment got caught up on the state of Florida’s “anti-woke crusade.”
Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Baptist school, responded to Baptist News Global with a written statement saying, “There have been numerous inaccurate reports and harmful characterizations by a former employee, Dr. Sam Joeckel, that have painted a false picture of our community and our very ethos as it relates to issues of race, diversity, social justice and academic freedom.”
The school further said Joeckel “had been on a performance improvement plan since the fall of 2022,” that Joeckel’s claims of being let go were incorrect, and that “the administration had no issue with Dr. Joeckel continuing to teach in this manner.” The university claims it decided to terminate his contract on March 15 following his attempts to take the story to the media.
The university claims it decided to terminate his contract on March 15 following his attempts to take the story to the media.
Joeckel says that is not true.
“The statement is filled with falsehoods and distortions,” he said. “In fact, the university never told me why exactly I was fired. This is one reason why both the American Association of University Professors and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have both issued statements supporting me and condemning the unjust actions of PBAU.”
He countered: “As soon as I went public, the university began to deploy smokescreen and diversionary tactics. They didn’t want this to be about racial justice because it made them look bad. They then said their concern was pedagogical and that I was spending too much class time discussing racial justice. When that didn’t work, the second tactic was to say they received complaints from students, but those were all bogus. Finally, they claimed I was violating their anti-LGBTQ policies. While I was honest in private meetings with the president and dean that I disagreed with those policies, I never broke them and agreed — in the words of the dean — not to ‘promote homosexuality in the classroom,’ whatever that might mean.”
Joeckel is currently in the process of filing a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the incident. His lawyer, Gabe Roberts, said an investigation is still under way and “our goal is to seek justice for what happened to Dr. Joeckel, as well as to bring attention to what is happening in our education system. We believe both goals will be accomplished with this case.”
Saint Vincent College
Bradley Watson and Hillsdale College
Conversely, left-leaning professors aren’t the only school officials getting hit amidst the “woke” wars. Many universities have taken the opportunity in recent years to tacitly or explicitly endorse discussions of racial reconciliation and diversity initiatives on campus. These schools have not been afraid to curb controversial staff or those at the receiving end of grassroots “cancellation” efforts. Just as proponents of racial justice and diversity are getting cut from conservative institutions, critics of these ideas are finding themselves pushed out of progressive institutions.
Bradley Watson is an associate professor of government at Hillsdale College. He previously served as a faculty member at Saint Vincent College, a private Catholic school in Latrobe, Pa.
Bradley Watson
He resigned from his position at Saint Vincent in protest in 2022 following an uproar among the administration after inviting Hillsdale College Professor David Azerrad to the Center for Political and Economic Thought — giving a provocative speech on “colorblindness” with phrases such as “Black privilege” and “racial hierarchy.” Dean Gary Quinlivan subsequently condemned the speech as discriminatory, degrading, demeaning and bigoted.
“I’m an intellectual refugee at Hillsdale,” Watson said. “Mine was just another one in the long, sad series of high-profile academic cancellations. The details were widely reported in various national media outlets. The president of the college took offense at the remarks of a single speaker, of the hundreds I had invited to campus over decades. He made clear the center would henceforth report to the senior administration and require preapproval for all of its speakers. My faculty colleagues did what academics do in such situations — they cowered.”
Watson was not terminated from Saint Vincent College in the manner Joeckel was, and both men have been able to rebound into new jobs more welcoming toward their ideological stances. However, both examples reflect how average professors feel their academic freedom being pinched by the whims of either side of the culture wars — with their ability to teach freely being squashed by administrations fearful of political fallout, while professors’ longstanding reputations as collegial faculty members go unheeded.
“The fact is there’s a totalizing effort afoot in the academy to squeeze out, silence or harass the relatively few faculty members and administrators who refuse to toe certain ideological lines,” Watson charged. “This has been the case for decades now, but it’s taken on a new virulence, and a quasi-religious aspect, in recent years. They see sin everywhere, but no possibility of redemption save through ideological submission. Hence their near-constant need to signal their own virtue, lest the bell tolls for them. Active conformity is expected.”
Hillsdale College has notably stood as one of the more aggressive proponents against “wokeness” in recent years.
Hillsdale College has notably stood as one of the more aggressive proponents against “wokeness” in recent years. Its reputation as a Christian, right-leaning, classical liberal arts college has made it appealing to conservatives and critics of “wokeness,” with the school taking a nominally adversarial stance toward public education and promoting private charter schools across the country.
College President Larry Arnn even blasted public education to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in a leaked discussion earlier this year, in which he described public school teachers as coming from the “dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.”
The school also proudly accepted its recent ranking in a College Pulse survey, which suggests Hillsdale College ranks the highest in protecting free speech on campus. The survey suggested Hillsdale ranked first among “expressing ideas,” “opposition to disruptive conduct,” “openness to new ideas,” “administrative support of free speech,” and tolerance for speakers on both sides of the aisle.
Watson praised Hillsdale College’s bravery in taking a stance against the forces that resulted in him leaving Saint Vincent, arguing the school is “in the business of intellectually serious education” through the “formation of well-educated citizens.”
“There’s nothing wrong with intelligently wielding political power to stop this incessant march,” he said. “I do believe there’s a role for intelligent political resistance to the woke revolution that anyone with the eyes to see knows is going on.”