An increasing number of academics are speaking out about Christian colleges, claiming they were forced out of their jobs because of the rising intensity of conservative politics on campuses.
Cancel culture, in which an individual perceived to have acted in an unacceptable manner is ostracized, typically refers to those who have violated liberal norms. But a number of professors are now speaking out, claiming they were canceled for being perceived as too liberal, even if they didn’t identify as such.
“What gets faculty members in trouble now isn’t purely a theological disagreement, but it is coming down on the wrong side of a culture wars issue,” Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University in Michigan who spoke broadly on the issue, told Newsweek via telephone.
On July 29, a lawsuit was filed against Liberty University by Ellenor Zinski, a former employee of the university, seeking $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. Zinski claimed in the suit that she was fired after she revealed she was transgender and intended to change her name. Newsweek reached out to Liberty and Zinski’s legal team via email for comment on Friday.
Over the course of a few months, Newsweek spoke to several other academics who shared their stories of being let go from Christian universities.
Matt Warner’s Story
Matt Warner started at Grace College in Indiana as a communications professor in the fall of 2023. Six weeks into his employment, local activists came across his social media posts spanning 10 years, Warner said on a video call with Newsweek. Warner said some people “found [the posts] objectionable to their personal politics.” He claimed they then started a “smear campaign” and “tried to get him fired.”
Grace College told Newsweek via email on July 26: “Dr. Matt Warner fulfilled his agreement for the year. Grace College wishes Dr. Warner well in his future endeavors. As with all personnel matters, we are unable to provide further comment.”
“There’s 24 of us who in the last two years or so have been removed from evangelical institutions, mostly from colleges, mostly from colleges in the CCCU [Council for Christian Colleges & Universities], and then a few folks also from evangelical institutions that are not schools…who’ve been fired,” Warner said.
Warner claimed that people like himself can be forced out of their institutions for a multitude of reasons, which are almost always outside the bounds of the institutions’ written policies: “Whether that’s opposition to [former President] Donald Trump, whether that’s not having strong convictions on LGBTQ+ issues…whether it’s support of Black Lives Matter…or even being a member of the wrong denomination,” he said.
“In 2022, what was acceptable, or in 2012, what was acceptable, suddenly in 2024 is unacceptable and is grounds for termination,” Warner added.
Grace College decided not to renew Warner’s employment agreement at the end of the academic year. Warner claimed they gave him “no reason” for not renewing his contract.
“They said we have the legal and institutional right to non-renew you for no reason, but the subtext was the administration’s response to a very public, viral campaign that maligned my faith and character,” he said.
Reflecting on his experience at Grace College, Warner added: “The big problem is that external people at private and public colleges, Christian and non-Christian colleges, have more influence than they should. The effect of that is that the quality of education and job security for professors and the commitment to free inquiry are all being diminished.”
Karen Swallow Prior’s Story
For Karen Swallow Prior, social media was also a source of trouble when she was a research professor of English and Christianity and culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in North Carolina. She spent almost three years at SBTS from August 2020 to July 2023.
“A lot of the politicization and polarization that I think is driving institutions apart, both on the right and the left, takes place on social media. Most of the pushback that I got leading up to that request to leave or get off [of social media] was related to either tweets that I would make or replies that I would make in dialogue with those out on social media about the issues that I care about,” Prior told Newsweek via telephone.
Prior said that the primary issues that she would talk about on social media was abortion, which she has a “pro-life position” on, her opposition to Trump and her advocacy for sexual abuse survivors.
“I was told that a donor, whose identity I don’t know, made a complaint about me. The nature of the complaint was never told to me. So I was asked to either leave or get off social media. I chose to leave, not because I value social media that much, but because I value myself enough not to remain part of an institution that doesn’t value my voice,” Prior claims.
Newsweek reached out to SBTS via email for comment.
Prior added: “As a Christian, I just want leaders in church and parachurch organizations to not pay so much attention to the politics of the moment, because that’s not what our faith is all about.”
Kirsten Guidero’s Story
Kirsten Guidero was an associate professor of Humanities and Theology at the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University from the fall of 2018 to the spring of 2023.
She recalled an incident involving the use of pronouns in the classroom.
Guidero said faculty were given a book from a speaker who taught them about how to better engage students in learning, and it included a section about asking students their pronouns. Guidero incorporated the pronoun activity into her classroom, along with other activities from the book.
“I was informed that I needed to go and talk to the provost about whether or not I could violate any institution’s faith commitments. And it came out in that conversation that some students had complained to their parents about the pronoun activity…And there wasn’t really a clear directive given from the provost. But then my direct supervisor met with me the next day and told me, directly, do not do that,” Guidero told Newsweek via telephone.
Newsweek reached out to Indiana Wesleyan University via email for comment.
Guidero said her college’s administration told her that “they didn’t believe that I was fulfilling the covenant that I signed. I wasn’t able to fulfill the duties of my contract because I couldn’t agree with our faith.”
The college’s president “could void a contract at any point and he was the sole arbiter of whether someone was a mission fit or not,” Guidero explained. “Regardless of what you say, regardless of your evaluations, regardless of what you actually did or didn’t do. It was purely left to his whim…which is extremely dangerous and concerning.”
Guidero eventually resigned from her position.
An alumnus of Indiana Wesleyan University, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke highly of Guidero, and told Newsweek that she created a safe space for her students.
“I kind of accidentally outed myself [to Guidero],” the alumnus said about their sexuality. “But she had a surprisingly wonderful response. Honestly, [she was] the first adult I’d ever really come out to who had not responded by trying to change me or bring me back into the fold.”
The alumnus mentioned Guidero’s pronoun activity, and claimed: “That was a huge thing that was very much frowned upon at school and I’m sure she got a lot of heat for it, but there was a kid in the class who was trans[gender] so it was important because it made space for that student and made them feel like they had a place to belong.”
Joey Cochran’s Story
Joey Cochran, a former history professor at Wheaton College, claims his departure was influenced by a few online incidents. Cochran worked at Wheaton College in Illinois for four years from spring 2020 to spring 2024.
After the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade and in effect, making abortion a state issue, Cochran made a public statement “about legislating the bodies of women and how it’s really important for us to listen to their voices because it’s their lives that are being legislated,” Cochran told Newsweek via telephone.
As a result of that statement, Cochran said, William Wolfe, a former senior official in the Trump administration, wrote a post online about how three faculty from evangelical colleges—Warren Throckmorton from Grove City College, Du Mez from Calvin University and Cochran—needed to be removed or fired immediately.
Cochran also made an online post pertaining to the Israel-Hamas war that essentially said: “We need to listen to the stories and the voices of people in Israel and in Gaza and Palestine and privilege their perspective because they’re the ones who are really caught up in what’s taking place rather than listen to, and I said specifically white conservative male evangelical, privileged voices,” Cochran said.
“It’s generative for a healthy society to actually have open conversations in public spaces about contested issues,” he added.
While Cochran did get an offer for the 2024-25 academic year, it was a lower position than the visiting professorship he had. He was only offered to teach two classes next fall.
“For me, that was kind of a non-starter where I’m at professionally because I’m married, I have four kids. I can’t go back to working part-time,” Cochran explained, adding that it stretched him financially when he had previously worked part-time.
Wheaton College spokesman Joe Moore told Newsweek via email on Monday: “Joseph Cochran was not forced out of a position at Wheaton College. He was a one-year visiting assistant-professor sabbatical replacement for a history professor last year. He taught as an adjunct for a period of time at Wheaton before that. The College did not have any tenure-track positions open at the conclusion of our most recent academic year, and he took a position at another institution.”
Cochran has accepted a new position as a history instructor at Purdue University Northwest in Indiana.
“I loved many of my colleagues at Wheaton and believe that it has the potential to stand apart and lead the way in Christian public engagement, but it needs to make some bold moves yet to do so,” he told Newsweek via email. “I’m looking forward to a new beginning at Purdue University Northwest.”
Aaron Werner’s Story
Aaron Werner, an assistant professor of religion at Liberty College in Virginia from December 2019 to January 2023, told Newsweek he thought his departure could have been down to several critical thinking exercises he had his classes work through, which included critiquing the worldview of Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell.
He also encouraged his students to discuss why non-Christians seem more concerned about the environment than Christians, to consider the claim that it is dangerous to attach Christianity too closely to any one political or economic system and to assess the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, among other hot-button topics.
“The way they fired me [was] almost vindictive. It’s made it almost impossible to get another job anywhere. They fired me mid-semester, called me down for a special meeting, locked me out of my office. I couldn’t say goodbye to the students,” Werner claimed to Newsweek via telephone, adding that he previously asked that if he were to be fired later down the line they do it in a “Christian way.”
Newsweek reached out to Liberty College via email for comment.
Werner was sent a termination letter in January 2023, which was obtained by Newsweek. The letter stated that Werner was being terminated “in accordance with Section 2, parts b and d, Involuntary Termination of the faculty contract you signed…”
Section 2, Part (b) of the contract refers to an employee’s failure or refusal to comply with the “policies, standards and regulations” of Liberty University.
“As far as I know, I never failed to comply with an established policy, standard, or regulation,” Werner wrote in an email to Newsweek.
Section 2, Part (d) refers to an employee conducting themselves in an “unprofessional, unethical, immoral or of a fraudulent manner” or if an employee discredits the institution or causes harm to its “reputation, character and standing.”
“As far as I know, my conduct was never unprofessional, unethical, immoral, or fraudulent. However, it is possible that I said something that the administration may have (wrongly) concluded was ‘detrimental to the reputation, character and standing of the institution.’ Nevertheless, I never said anything that was actually detrimental to the institution,” Werner wrote.
Clive Craigen’s Story
Clive Craigen was a professor in the Urban Ministry department at Moody Bible Institute in Illinois from 2006 to 2019.
“I started teaching at Moody and I would tell people that I was still fairly conservative about a lot of issues…when I started teaching at Moody, I went through a culture shock because it was a time where I was living in a predominantly Black world,” Craigen told Newsweek via telephone.
Craigen recalled when he would intentionally diversify the speakers at the college’s annual missions conferences, getting the most pushback in 2014 when the key plenary speaker was an African man who spoke four times and in 2017 when five of the seven speakers were women and only one was a man.
“I got all kinds of grief from all kinds of people. And my bosses were getting letters and emails from faculty and students and other things like that,” Craigen claimed.
Despite members of the administration fighting for Craigen’s job, he was let go.
“I got called into a meeting and I was told your contract’s not being renewed by the interim provost and one of the academic vice presidents. Budget cuts, per se,” he said.
Moody Bible Institute declined to comment when reached by Newsweek as it does not publicly comment on someone’s current or past employment at the college.
Craigen urged Americans, especially white practicing Christians, to take a serious look at the country’s past as it relates to race relations.
“One thing America and the American church has never done well is—because I think part of what my commitment as a follower of Jesus, is to be a truth teller. And I think that means we have to tell the truth about the past…I think it is time for the white practicing Christians…to look back and own their complicity in the entrenchment and support given to whiteness,” he said.
Sam Joeckel
Sam Joeckel was a professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. While he is legally unable to talk about his employment there because of a civil dispute with the university settled out of court, he spoke about how Christian universities have become more conservative in recent years.
“Evangelical and evangelical-allied institutions have always been politically conservative. Prior to 2016, some of them could at least tolerate more progressive faculty. A number of things have changed. Obviously, one is Trump’s takeover of the Republican party,” Joeckel told Newsweek via email.
These institutions “have basically followed the predictable political script: weed out ‘woke’ professors, terminate any programs that even resemble DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] programs, and strengthen their anti-gay policies. In short, these institutions have become bastions of homophobic, white Christian nationalism,” he said.
Joeckel said another change is smaller colleges and universities struggling financially, capitalizing on a niche market: “Pro-Trump parents who want a Trump-friendly institution to send their children,” he added. “The price for all of this is intellectual diversity and integrity, academic freedom, and the religion that these institutions claim to teach.”
He mentioned a third shift: “Conservative helicopter parents carefully monitor the activities of their children’s school. Their radar is up, on the lookout for any sign of a ‘woke’ professor.”
“I think that evangelical and evangelical-allied institutions need either to embrace political and theological diversity or stop calling themselves institutions of higher learning,” Joeckel said.
Newsweek reached out to Palm Beach Atlantic University via email for comment.
