Texas Prof Ousted After Fight Over Crosses
A Jewish lecturer at Texas A&M University-San Antonio says she has not been asked back to teach because she complained about crosses placed near the entrance of the public university.
Sissy Bradford, who lectured on criminology at the university, said she received hate mail both physically and electronically, including death threats, the San Antonio Express reported.
Bradford last October protested against crosses affixed on the Tower of Hope, a tower to demarcate the entrance to the university, which was paid for by the city, though it sits on private land. Bradford said the crosses were inappropriate at the entrance to a publicly funded university.
“Christianity is not everyone’s tower or beacon of hope, nor is the promotion of Christianity the mission of Texas A&M University-San Antonio,” Bradford reportedly wrote to university officials in an e-mail last fall.
The San Antonio Express quoted a university spokeswoman as saying some 20 adjunct staff members will not be teaching in the fall due to the university’s “changing needs.”
Adjuncts are hired on a semester-by-semester basis; Bradford had been at the university since 2010.
Bradford told the newspaper that she has hired an attorney and could file a lawsuit against the university.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
