UT Dallas professor under fire for anti-LGBTQ+ tweets

RICHARDSON, Texas — University of Texas at Dallas officers are investigating a professor who tweeted about asking for a “cure for homosexuality” and referred to as homosexuality a “medical disorder,” the college stated in an announcement Monday morning.

The college “received several complaints related to a statement by a UT Dallas faculty member,” the statement said.

School officers had been “in the process of reviewing and investigating these complaints.”

UT Dallas, positioned in Richardson, has about 30,000 college students and is a part of the statewide UT system.

A statement from the university’s Rainbow Coalition – which incorporates and represents LGBTQ+ pupil teams, together with Pride at UTD and oSTEM – recognized the professor as Timothy P. Farage, a professor within the Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

The Rainbow Coalition assertion stated Farage “has a long, well-documented history of hostility on LGBTQ+ issues.”

“While this most recent post is a striking example example of homophobia and misinformation, it only exemplifies a portion of the hostility experienced by LGBTQ+ students in his classroom,” they are saying.

The Rainbow Coalition referred to as on UT Dallas officers “to take immediate, substantive action on this issue.”

According to the campus’ student-run newspaper, “The Mercury,” Farage final week posted an article a couple of monkeypox outbreak in New York City. He went on to ask if it was attainable to “find a cure for homosexuality.”

Twitter later took down the tweet for violating guidelines, however The Mercury, which posted a screenshot of Farage’s tweet, stated the professor’s replies to responders had been nonetheless seen, and Farage defended his feedback in subsequent tweets.

Farage spoke with WFAA and continued to defend his assertion and stated he does not imagine homosexuality is a sin. 

“I have nothing against homosexuals. I just was suggesting we try to find a cure,” he stated.

Farage advised WFAA he despatched the preliminary tweet as a result of he learn an article that stated monkeypox is “mainly spread by men who have sex with other men.” 

To be clear: anybody can contract monkeypox, which isn’t a sexually transmitted illness.

“There’s nothing about being gay or having sex with men that uniquely causes monkeypox,” stated Dr. Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services. 

Instead, Dr. Huang advised WFAA that infections are linked to specific occasions and festivals the place the virus spreads in shut contact. 

Farage advised WFAA that he does not really feel his beliefs are homophobic however steered that docs discover testing fetuses for homosexuality within the womb. 

“That is not… possible,” Huang stated. 

It’s been almost 50 years because the American Psychiatric Association acknowledged homosexuality will not be a illness. 

Student and Pride at UTD member Chase Mueller believes Farage must be fired and stated Farage’s feedback create a scarcity of security for LGBTQ+ college students, particularly these like him within the Computer Science division. 

“(Students) feel uncomfortable, they feel unsafe being themselves in a lot of those spaces. So allowing this professor to voice these opinions both in and out of class, share them with his students is only further promoting that,” stated Mueller. “And UTD, being a college that so extremely values its LGBT rankings, being ranked one of the best schools for LGBT students, I believe it is by no means useful to them or to their college students to advertise this sort of atmosphere.”

While UT Dallas officers examine Farage’s feedback, they stated the Jonsson School “is opening up additional sections of the fall classes taught by [Farage] to include at least one other professor to provide more options for students.”

“This will help our students remain on track to complete their degree while learning in a safe environment,” the college assertion stated. “While we will not comment further pending the outcome of our investigations, we wish to reiterate that we take this matter seriously and that the statements by this individual do not reflect the core values of our institution.”

“A lot of what they’ve been saying is, ‘We’ve heard about a tweet from a professor.’ But this is a lot more. This tweet has shown that students know he has a pattern of behavior in the classroom that makes people uncomfortable. That has been reported for years,” Mueller stated. “And this is just a big point in time where because of the tweet because of the current climate around LGBTQ+ hate. We can show all of this and say, ‘No, we are not going to let this continue happening.'”