Professors Protest Action Against Curran

The American Assn. of University Professors has placed the Catholic University of America on its censure list for its refusal to allow Father Charles E. Curran to continue to teach Catholic theology there in 1986 despite his status as a tenured faculty member.

The censure resolution was adopted June 16 at the association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia and was based on a report of an investigating committee, which concluded that the university had violated “values of academic freedom and institutional autonomy that the administration had publicly promised to uphold.”

Father William J. Byron, president of the university, said the AAUP action represented “a serious misunderstanding of the case” and stressed that “academic freedom is not absolute freedom.”

Catholic University told Curran he was ineligible to teach Catholic theology after his published views in the area of sexual ethics, especially birth control, divorce and homosexuality, were censured by the Vatican.

The internationally known scholar brought suit against the university for violating terms of his tenure. In February, 1989, a District of Columbia superior court judge ruled that the Catholic University did not violate any tenure contracts with the priest, who will begin teaching theology at Auburn University in Alabama July 1.

However, the AAUP’s fact-finding report said that Curran was “for all practical purposes deprived of his tenure without due process and without adequate cause.”