Christian Views Get Student Suspended from Rollins College

A student at Rollins College in Central Florida says he was suspended from the private school after he stood up for his Christian beliefs in a Middle Eastern Humanities class. The student, 22-year-old Marshall Polston, told the Central Florida Post that his Muslim professor claimed that Jesus was never crucified and that Christ’s disciples did not believe in his divinity.

Polston challenged Professor Areej Zufari’s assertions.

“Whether religious or not, I believe even those with limited knowledge of Christianity can agree that according to the text, Jesus was crucified and his followers did believe he was divine…that he was ‘God,’” he told the Post. “Regardless, to assert the contrary as academic fact is not supported by the evidence.”

Zufari, according to Polston, filed a complaint against him with school officials, claiming the student made her feel “unsafe” with his outspoken disagreements. The school subsequently barred Poston from the campus and instructed him not to have any further contract with Zufari.

“Our university should be a place where free-speech flashes and ideas can be spoken of without punishment or fear of retribution,” Polston said in an interview with The College Fix. “In my case it was the total opposite. I came forward with the story because I know so many other students like me suffer under today’s liberal academic elite.”

Polston told the College Fix that he had hired an attorney and he would be filing suit against Rollins College unless the situation could be remedied to his satisfaction.

It’s hard to see how this professor could think that her views on the Truth of Christianity were relevant or appreciated in a Middle Eastern Humanities class, so we can only assume that she’s another liberal radical who uses her minority status to spew extreme opinions and disguise them as lectures. And of course, that minority status happens to be Muslim, which opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms. As Polston told the paper, Professor Zufari’s views on Christ were comparable to ideologies commonly seen in the Middle East.

Zufari is free to believe what she wants and free to tell her students about those beliefs for as long as her employers care to put up with it. But to demand her students accept her views as the unchallenged truth of the matter – and to reinforce that demand with a suspension – is a bridge too far.

When you start threatening a liberal’s safe little intellectual bubble, this is how they react.