A professor in Ireland was recently suspended, banned from campus, and then jailed after refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns.
Professor Enoch Burke at Wilson’s Hospital School in Ireland was asked by a transitioning student to be called “they” instead of the correct pronoun, he. After refusing to do so, the school suspended Burke and he was given a temporary court order to not attend the school while suspended. Burke refused to comply which resulted in his arrest after he came back to the school.
The professor stated that he had no intention of following the court order because his suspension violated his deeply-held religious beliefs and his individual liberty.
According to DailyMail, Professor Burke responded to his arrest with the following:
“I have had much time to consider my actions and behavior that brought me to that place and far from finding any instances of misconduct, let alone gross misconduct, I only found my actions to be commendable and that I had the courage to respond to the principal telling her that transgender was an abuse of children and a breach of my constitutional rights to free expression of religious beliefs.“
First, no one is denying that the professor should have stayed off campus after receiving a court order. That being said, this professor is essentially in jail because he exercised freedom of speech and decided not to follow along with a student’s delusions.
This should terrify every person in western society. More and more we are seeing countries begin to implement “hate speech laws” that make it illegal to call someone by their biological sex.
There’s an old saying that the speech we must protect is the kind that offends us the most. This was always the classical liberal’s approach to free speech, and it is something they must be fought for once again.
