Another professor at St. Philip’s College in San Antonio was reportedly fired due to student and faculty complaints about his political beliefs.
The instructor in question was Will Moravits, a former police officer who taught political science at the state community college. A student alleged that Moravits made several statements during class about LGBTQ lifestyles and police brutality that amounted to misconduct in their eyes, the Daily Caller reported.
Moravits received a Notice of Complaint from the Alamo Colleges District on February 13, 2023. The document said that a student claimed Moravits told a class that liberals “choose to organize pride parades with 12-year olds j–king off in them” and that the “LGBTQIA+ community is riddled with pedophilia.”
Other allegations in the complaint claim that Moravits engaged in class discussions that “deviated from the course material” to irrelevant topics and made excuses for and justified police brutality.
Moravits has denied making such statements, noting that his political science classes would often require him to step in to present alternative sides to contentious issues.
“I do my best to present both sides of the argument based on my research,” Moravits said in a statement to The College Fix, explaining how he runs his classrooms. “I also tell them that when I taught at a local high school, I had two trans male students in my class that transitioned while I was their teacher and that they trusted me with the knowledge because they knew I would still treat them with care and respect, despite my own personal views about the issue.”
A Title IX investigation followed the complaint, resulting in Moravits’ suspension from his teaching position and his contract not being renewed, despite being scheduled to teach in 2024.
Moravits’ ordeal follows the firing of biology professor Johnson Varkey from St. Philip’s College. Varkey was allegedly terminated for telling his class that sex is determined by chromosomes, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
An attorney representing Moravits sent a letter to the school that reads in part:
“The student’s frivolous complaint and Alamo’s punitive actions in response to it clearly targeted Dr. Moravits’ protected speech as a teacher in the classroom. The student complaint arose in … Introduction to Political Science. In that class, Dr. Moravits did nothing more than ask students to engage all sides of controversial issues, such as police brutality and gender ideology. Many of his engagements with students in class discussion came in direct response to their questions.”
Some students of Moravits’ submitted sworn affidavits claiming they had never heard Moravits make inappropriate comments like the ones alleged in the complaint. Two affidavits were obtained and published by the Daily Caller.
“I am certain that Dr. Moravits never said in class that the LGBT community is riddled with pedophilia … and did not advocate for or justify police brutality in class,” said one student under oath.
Another affidavit from a student states, “I do not remember Dr. Moravits saying anything like, ‘police brutality is necessary,’ and I don’t remember him justifying police brutality in any way.” The student also swore, “I don’t recall Dr. Moravits talking about kids ‘j–king off’ at LGBTQ parades.”
“Dr. Moravits was always fair and respectful to all students and showed respect for students’ ideas and opinions. This is exactly what I went to school for, to learn about these kinds of things,” the student said in the affidavit.
Moravits told the Daily Caller that he believes he was terminated because a colleague found out about his conservative beliefs. He claimed he has screenshots of text messages from Cynthia Pryor, chair of the college’s social and behavioral sciences program, expressing alarm that he promoted a book he wrote on race and policing at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
“Well, I was stunned to see that Moravits hawked his book at the CPAC convention. CPAC has become a racist organization that promotes ‘racial purity’ and supports authoritarians such as Viktor Orban in Hungary,” Pryor allegedly texted. “Moravits seems to be associating with an anti-democratic group. That was surprising to me. He hid that part of his political philosophy quite well until he got the job.”
Another text by Pryor allegedly said she wanted the school to “push Moravits out.”
In an email to The College Fix, Moravits said he is “a firm believer in free speech and advocate that America, especially at the collegiate level, is a marketplace of ideas and that the proper mechanism for defeating an idea you disagree with is not to shut down speech, but to defeat those ideas with better ones.”
