Nearly a year and a half after the Fresno City College found he created a “hostile learning environment,” Health Information Technology professor, Brad Lopez, filed a lawsuit against the collegeyesterday in an effort to clear his record of accusations that he taught biased and anti-homosexual information in his Health 1 classes.
In March 2010, the college administrators had found that Lopez violated a campus anti-discrimination policy when he told students that homosexuality was a mental disorder and should be treated with psychotherapy.
A letter dated March 8, 2010 and signed by Vice President of Student Services, Chris Villa stated that the college found that Lopez had, “engaged in conduct that could result in the creation of a hostile learning environment by unreasonably interfering with students’ learning by making insulting comments directed toward homosexuals.”
Lopez, however, maintained throughout that he was within his rights as an instructor. “Everything I teach is within the scope of Health Science 1 on this campus,” he said.
In the Feb. 24, 2010 edition of the Rampage, staff reporter Andrew Veihmeyer reported that according to a video of one of Lopez’s taped lectures, available to his students on the Internet, a PowerPoint presentation with a slide titled “Homosexuality Facts” showed Lopez making comments as the information was displayed, “information that some students called offensive and inappropriate.”
“The slide, among other things, described homosexuality as “a biological misapplication of human sexuality,” and “a one-sided foundation for raising children.” In the video Lopez told students that same-sex attraction were a “dead end” and a disorder and he recommended psychological counseling for people that had them,” according to Viehmeyer’s article.
Lopez’s lawyer, Charles Magill had then said, “His [Lopez] responsibility is to teach his students about the facts, whether it’s politically correct or not,” adding that the accusations made against Lopez were, “fruitless and without support.”
Neither Lopez nor his attorney was available to comment. The Rampage will update this news as more information becomes available.
