What if your professor told you to stomp on the One you pray to every night? Well, that’s just what Dr. Deandre Poole, a professor at Florida Atlantic University, asked his students to do in his intercultural communications class when he instructed them to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper, throw it on the ground and step on it. While school administrators quickly suspended the student who refused to take part in the ‘Jesus Stomp’ exercise, they only removed Dr. Poole from his position as a matter of safety after he began receiving death threats. Now, the professor who forced students to violate their religious consciences is returning to FAU to teach summer and fall classes, with the questionable “Jesus Stomp” assignment allowed to remain as part of the curriculum.
Back in March, when this controversy erupted, a couple of students on the popular college website RateMyProfessor.com cited Poole’s arrogance and lack of inclusiveness in the classroom. One person wrote, “Prof Poole is a bit arrogant. Most of what is taught here is opinion yet Prof Poole is intolerant of opinions that conflict with his own.” Another student complained Poole is “Disrespectful and dismissive of ideas that he does not agree with. I do not recommend his class.”
These direct student comments and Poole’s conduct seem counter to his faculty description on FAU’s website, which reads, “His research focuses on the role mediated messages play in shaping individual attitudes and beliefs concerning issues of justice and inequality, and examines how leaders, organizations, and other influential authorities dominate and oppress marginalized groups of people.”
I wonder if any of those “marginalized groups of people” include Christians. If Poole had swapped those five letters in his “Jesus Stomp” assignment for A-L-L-A-H, no doubt the politically correct liberal media would be in an uproar and the government would be calling for the school’s demolition.
Sadly, Poole is not the only college professor to recently mock God. Anthea Butler, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, responded to George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict by writing on her blog our Lord and Savior is “a white racist God with a problem.”
Poole’s reinstatement at FAU, along with Butler’s inappropriate comment, is yet another indication of the ostracizing Christians face on college campuses. Those who are tasked with teaching children about diversity may want to check their own biases before the bell rings each day.