Hostile Professor Antagonizes Christian Student

Johnathan Lopez, a Christian student at Los Angeles City College, has become the star of what has become a now familiar saga. But as familiar as this story is, it will still make your blood boil:

During the fall 2008 semester, Lopez took an Introduction to Public Speaking (Speech 101) class. It was taught by one John Matteson.

In Speech 101 there are several different speaking assignments, including a delivery speech, a culture speech, an informative speech, and a persuasive speech. For the informative speech, Professor Matteson allowed students to cover any topic and to speak between six and eight minutes with or without visual aids.

In November, Jonathan Lopez attempted to give his informative speech on God and the ways he has seen God act miraculously in his life and in the lives of others. In the middle of that speech, Lopez spoke of God and morality and read the dictionary definition of marriage. He also read two verses from the Bible.

But before Lopez was finished with his speech, Professor Matteson interrupted him. After calling Lopez a “fascist bastard” in front of other students, Matteson invited students to leave the class if they had been offended. When no one left, the professor dismissed the entire class.

As Jonathan Lopez prepared to leave class that day he found an evaluation form left in his backpack by Professor Matteson. There was no grade for the informative speech. Instead there was this instruction: “Ask God what your grade is.” It was followed by a statement saying that “prostyelsyszing [sic] is inappropriate in a public school.”

What happened to – “allowed to cover any topic”? Any topic but religion, apparently. Maybe the good professor should stipulate that next time so there’s no confusion. Something tells me, though, that if a student chose to speak about the glories of Islam, that would have been A-OK. In fact, I would bet any amount of money that that double standard would exist in Matteson’s class.

This was not the first time Professor Matteson’s animus towards Christians had been on display. Several weeks before the aforementioned incident, he told students the following: “If you voted yes on Proposition 8, you are a fascist bastard.”

Hmmm, is anyone else beginning to detect a pattern, here? Read on as Lopez’s problems get even worse.

Hat tip: Weasel Zippers

UPDATE:

Go see BlackisWhite Imperial Consigliere for a sharp rebuke of the college’s actions from an attorney’s point of view.