Top prof sparks outrage
Devout are 'moral retards,' he sez
A Brooklyn College professor who called religious people "moral retards" was elected to head his department this month - sparking a campus uproar.
E-mails expressing alarm that Timothy Shortell was now chairman of the sociology department circulated among students last week on the school's Midwood campus.
Shortell has written in an online academic publication that the devout "are an ugly, violent lot. In the name of their faith, these moral retards are running around pointing fingers."
"I'm horrified by the ideology of Prof. Shortell," said Eldad Yaron, a Brooklyn College senior.
"This person has control right now on the content of many classes every student will take. Just imagine how fair and balanced these classes will be."
Daniel Tauber, president-elect of the school's student government, said he was worried that Shortell and other faculty members would breed religious intolerance at the diverse college.
"I would like to see professors in high positions who don't believe religious people are moral retards," Tauber said.
Shortell's remarks - which included lines such as "Christians claim that theirs is faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you" - elicited a multifaith backlash among university groups.
"He's intolerant," fumed Alex Selsky of the school's Hillel chapter, a Jewish campus organization. "With this kind of unreasonable thinking, I don't know how he can be elected to head of a department."
Kevin Oro-Hahn, director of the school's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, said he hopes the university can "move beyond mere rhetoric in the pursuit of truth."
A college spokesman said there's little CUNY officials can do.
"Whether one agrees with Dr. Shortell's comments, this is an election as mandated by university guidelines," he said. "His comments are public, but this is the decision of the sociology department."
Shortell didn't return calls to him at his office.
Brooklyn College, which has more than 15,000 students, observed its 75th anniversary this year. It was named one of the top 10 best values among undergraduate institutions in the country by the Princeton Review.
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