A letter to the president of Loyola University, New Orleans:
9:00 am on March 10, 2009Father Wilde,
In teaching undergraduates and seminarians over the last twenty-one years, I have never encountered a faculty committee which demands proof of innocence in a case of alleged faculty misconduct.
Congratulations. By sanctioning the continuing existence of the Diversity Committee on your campus, you have put Loyola on the map all right.
In the matter of Professor Walter Block, you consecrate a new and unconscionable wrinkle in the institutional bullying of faculty with unpopular ideas. And in the process, because of your institution’s denominational affiliation, you set back the reputation of your church and order alike hundreds of years.
Is it true that Professor Block has an enviable record of publication compared to most members of the Pharisaical lynch mob of academics out to silence his voice at Loyola? Is it true that compared to his critics on your Diversity Committee, Professor Block has an enviable record of student evaluations in his teaching?
It is past time for you to address truth in all her fullness in the matter of a gifted faculty member whose name has been dragged through the mud.
Come Holy Thursday, are you going to remember that Jesus stood with the accused? Only if there is some political capital in it for Kevin Wilde, right?
If you can’t do the right thing to insure diversity of opinion at Loyola, for God’s sake resign and let a man take your job.
–The Reverend William Barr (Katy, Texas)
