I was initially hesitant to comment on this story. After all, I presumed that the University of Toledo was a private school, and therefore entitled to impose any sort of fascistic speech code it chose on its students and employees. Indeed, such a school might even legitimately subordinate notions of academic freedom to a greater mission of promulgating a world-view, however wrong-headed a notion that might be.

But then I found out that the University of Toledo is a taxpayer-supported public university – and that makes all the difference in the Crystal Dixon case

The University of Toledo has suspended with pay one of its administrators for writing a newspaper op-ed that questions whether homosexuality is a civil rights issue. The school said the administrator was suspended precisely because her views on homosexuality do not comport with those of the university, a state institution.

Crystal Dixon, associate vice president of human resources at the Ohio-based university, sparked controversy Apr. 18 when she wrote in the Toledo Free Press that she did not agree with comments by the newspaper's editor that portrayed homosexuals as civil rights victims.

In the column, "Gay rights and wrongs: another perspective," Dixon said she was not speaking on behalf of the university, but was writing privately as "a Black woman who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Toledo's Graduate School, an employee and a business owner."

Please note that Dixon took great pains in her commentary to indicate that her stance on homosexuality is a personal one, not the official position of her employer. And note as well that her column was in response to a column that appeared in two weeks earlier by its editor-in-chief of the paper. As such, Dixon was acting as an American citizen, participating in the general dialogue on important matters of public concern.

However, the exercise of such freedom seems to scare the top level officials at this public university – and they will not tolerate it. Not only did the school’s president see fit to officially denounce Dixon, he has instituted personnel action against Dixon in retaliation for her exercise of her constitutional rights – action that now appears to include her termination. Apparently in the great scheme of things, the rights of gay people to go about unoffended trump the civil rights of an African-American Christian woman to be free violation of her First Amendment rights by politiKally Korrect Kluxers acting under color of law. Any outcome short of the full reinstatement of Crystal Dixon to her position – and the termination of those university officials involved in this civil rights violation – is unacceptable.

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