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Conservative professor files Title IX complaint for denied funding of all-male abortion debate

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Organizers informed that abortion is a ‘women’s issue’

Mike Adams spent 7 years suing the University of North Carolina-Wilmington for refusing to give him the promotion he had objectively earned after he became an outspoken Christian.

He eventually got everything he wanted, even more than half a million dollars in attorney’s fees.

Now the criminology professor, who is publicly and unabashedly pro-life, has found a new violation of his rights: under Title IX.

In an Oct. 16 internal complaint Adams shared with The College Fix, the professor told a deputy Title IX coordinator that he filed the complaint “merely out of necessity,” based on campuswide marching orders from Chancellor Jose Sartarelli.

Back in August, a student and alumna of UNCW requested funding and co-sponsorship from the Women’s Resource Center for a campus debate on abortion scheduled for February, Adams said. The event features Adams and Willie Parker, a nationally celebrated “Christian abortion provider.”

MORE: UMinn opens award, scholarship to men after Title IX complaint

Both the director of the WRC and her board denied funding and co-sponsorship on the grounds that “abortion is a ‘women’s issue’ and that the debate participants are both male,” Adams wrote: “To be clear, there was no other explanation offered for refusing to provide funding and co-sponsorship for the debate except for the gender of the participants in the debate.”

He said the WRC director made this “explicit admission of gender-based discrimination was made in front of two reliable witnesses.” (The student is a member of the campus chapter of Ratio Christi and the alumna works for the Christian apologetics college ministry.)

Adams told the deputy Title IX coordinator he didn’t think to report the incident until Chancellor Sartarelli sent faculty and staff an email at the start of the academic year.

It reminded them of their obligation to “report any incidents of gender-based discrimination” under Department of Education requirements. Such incidents “will not be tolerated,” and the university will “promptly” investigate allegations, Sartarelli wrote: “[A]cts of discrimination will be redressed and appropriate remedial action will be taken.”

Adams continued that Parker, “who happens to be black,” is also a victim of the Women’s Resource Center’s discrimination:

I hope that the university will take the refusal of the WRC to fund his speech on the basis of his gender just as seriously as they would take the refusal to fund his speech on the basis of his race. Either form of discrimination is reprehensible.

MORE: Adams trolls abortion activists who suppress speech

“I would have been content merely to publicly ridicule the WRC for its rank hypocrisy,” Adams concluded. “But the tenor of Dr. Sartarelli’s email suggested I really had no choice but to notify you.”

Asked to explain whether the behavior alleged by Adams would violate university policy, a university spokesperson told The Fix it doesn’t comment on “the possible receipt or status of Title IX complaints.”

Adams also wrote about his complaint in his Townhall column Tuesday, claiming “I have not been advised of the university’s ruling in the case” more than a month after filing his complaint.

He said the one of the members of the WRC board is “an avowed Marxist feminist and the principal defendant in my previous lawsuit against UNC-Wilmington”:

In other words, it appears that at least one feminist who previously lost a discrimination suit to me is now advising other feminists who wish to discriminate against me. These educators give the appearance of being willfully uneducable.

UNCW earns a “green light” rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, meaning its policies “nominally protect free speech.”

Read Adams’ column.

UPDATE: The UNCW administration responded to a Fix request for comment. 

MORE: Adams gets promotion, back pay, attorney’s fees after 7-year legal battle

IMAGE: University of North Carolina-Wilmington

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About the Author
Associate Editor
Greg Piper served as associate editor of The College Fix from 2014 to 2021.