Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, an evangelical Christian, filed an EEOC discrimination complaint on July 5, claiming that officials at the school “harassed me for some time by disagreeing with my conservative religious ideals, intimidating me, slandering my character, giving me poor evaluations and changing student grades from failing to passing with no merit.”
A former associate professor at Interdenominational Theological Center has filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging he was fired in part because of his age, sex and religion.
Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, an evangelical Christian, filed an EEOC discrimination complaint on July 5, claiming that officials at the school “harassed me for some time by disagreeing with my conservative religious ideals, intimidating me, slandering my character, giving me poor evaluations and changing student grades from failing to passing with no merit.”
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hopkins added that his trouble started after a guest speaker he invited on campus handed out an anti-homosexuality book.
He was fired July 3. “We are arguing breach of contract,” said Jamal-Dominique Hopkins’ lawyer Joe Hopkins, who is also his father. “They ignored their stated procedures for termination, tenure and grievance.”
On Thursday, ITC President Ronald Peters declined to speak with a reporter, but his office provided a copy of a letter to the American Association of University Professors, who made an inquiry on his behalf. Peters wrote that Hopkin’s firing had nothing to do with “academic freedoms.”
“Dr. Hopkins’ assertions must be affirmed, at best, as disappointing remarks of a disgruntled former employee and are a misrepresentation of fact,” Peters wrote. The letter states because of the “very real” possibility that the matter will end up in litigation, “we have been advised by legal counsel to refrain from speaking or making statements relative to this matter.”
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