St. Philip’s College, San Antonio Texas fired a biology professor for telling his students that sex is determined by X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes.
First Liberty Institute, an American law firm that protects religious freedom, wrote to the community colleges on behalf of Dr. Johnson Varkey demanding they reinstate him following his dismissal in January 2023.
First Liberty wrote in its letter that “When teaching about the human reproductive system Dr. Varkey stated that the chromosomes of X and Y determine human sex and that reproduction between males and females is necessary to maintain the human species.” In the course of teaching Human Anatomy & Physiology for 20 years without incident or complaint, Dr. Varkey made these statements in every class.
Varkey had told his class dozens of times before that the X and Y-chromosomes determine a person’s gender.
According to complaints against Varkey, he engaged in “religious sermons, discriminatory remarks about homosexuals and Transgender individuals and anti-abortion language” as well as “misogynistic banter.” His teaching also “went beyond the bounds academic freedom, with [his] own personal opinions which were offensive to many students in the classroom,” the letter stated.
St. Philip’s College insists that Dr. Varkey’s teachings are religious, despite the fact that he taught from a science-based and school-approved curriculum.
First Liberty claimed that his teachings were supported by his experience and education in his field as well as his religion, but “during his employment, he never shared with any students his personal views – religious or otherwise – on human gender or sexuality.”
First Liberty reports that Dr. Varkey was an adjunct professor at St. Philip’s College for 22 years. He taught Human Anatomy & Physiology to over 1,500 students and taught the same principles for which he had been fired this year.
First Liberty alleged that the college was engaging in illegal religious discrimination under the First Amendment as well as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Varkey, they said, “believes he has an obligation as a Christian as well as as a professor, to teach accurate and true concepts which are in line with his years of research and studies in the field of Human Biology.”
“It is preposterous that, after teaching for more than 20 years, St. Philips would fire Dr. Varkey for teaching basic, widely accepted biology,” said Keisha Russell, Counsel for First Liberty Institute said in a statement. “Dr. Varkey received exemplary performance reviews for twenty years, teaching fact-based, widely accepted science. But now that cultural elites are at odds with these ideas, the school no longer supports professors who teach them. The college violated Dr. Varkey’s constitutional and statutory rights when it fired him, and it must reinstate him immediately.”
