please don't believe everything you read (even when it plays into your pet prejudices or vices)

I am hesitant to make this post, and I do so reluctantly and with personal sorrow.  The reason for the reluctance and hesitation and sorrow is that some of what this involves is better forgiven and forgotten.  But because someone else is using the matter to do further damage to a person I care about and respect and to an institution I respect (with some qualification that involves the matter that should be forgiven and forgotten), I feel obligated to set the record straight. 

This editorial by law professor Carlos Ball doesn't mention Villanova Law by name in its ignorant and vicious broadside on the Catholic Church and Villanova in particular, but because Villanova Law is the only Catholic law school whose dean has resigned for the reason Ball mentions, everyone knows the place he's talking about.  Ball claims that the dean there, the unnamed Mark Sargent, "vetoed" the offer the faculty had voted him.  Ball further claims: "Knowledgeable sources later told me that the Dean did so because I was openly gay and because of my writings in support of LGBT rights." 

I wish these "knowledgeable sources" would present themselves to me in person so that we can set the record straight in person.  But I need to set the public record straight as well, at least to the extent I am not bound by obligations of confidentiality.  I will stipulate for present purposes that Prof. Ball believed that his sources were in fact "knowledgeable" (though his total lack of compassion for the failing that led to Dean Sargent's resignation from the deanship raises questions of integrity in my mind).  Those sources were, however, in error, and I don't know whether their intent was to calumniate Sargent and Villanova Law, but their false statements did in fact contribute to the calumniations Ball offered to all the world.  I am aware of no one on the Villanova Law faculty, including the former member Dean Sargent, who would oppose a faculty candidate on the basis of sexual orientation.  Absolutely no one.  Dean Sargent in fact later led a full-court-press effort to recruit a gay entry-level candidate who was in an open relationship.  One of the catered recruiting dinners was at my house; the candidate and his partner were here, as were a University Vice President and several of my colleagues  It was marvelous and memorable evening, and I am still disappointed that we lost the candidate to a better school.   Sargent was fully behind all that recruiting.  The faculty and dean were eager to have an openly gay colleague.

In a season in which Villanova is engaged in a dean search, I think it's vital to be unequivocal that Villanova Law faculty enjoy complete academic freedom.  They can write about whatever the heck they want.  I have colleagues who write about all kinds of stuff I regard as truly crazy, and many colleagues advance in print positions that are opposed to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.  That last fact, like the former, is not to my liking, but I accept that it is part of the American university model.  If the then-President of Villanova refused to authorize Dean Sargent to extend an offer of employment to someone because of his writing in favor "of LGBT rights," that is (a) not Sargent's doing and (b) not a violation of anyone's academic freedom.  I put this matter conditionally, because unlike my allegedly "knowledgable" colleagues who have savagely attacked a person and an institution, I recall that the meeting at which the decision regarding the Ball candidacy was announced was subject to the regular rules of faculty confidentiality regarding hiring. 

I'm not saying who made the decision not to extend an offer to Ball, but I feel morally obligated to state unequivocally that Sargent did not act against Ball in any way on account of his being "openly gay."  That Sargent did so is a lie, and I am very sorry those who told it contributed to Ball's personal hurt and misunderstanding and to damaging the reputations of both Mark Sargent and Villanova Law.  Shame on you.