SAN ANTONIO, Texas (LifeSiteNews) – A Texas biology professor is appealing to be reinstated after being fired following telling students that sex is based on chromosomes.
According to a letter from First Liberty Legal Group, released June 20, biology professor Johnson Varkey was fired from St. Philip’s College in San Antonio after four students walked out of his class when Varkey said that sex is determined by chromosomes in November 2023.
A January 10 email from Randall Dawson, the Vice President for Academic Success at St. Philip read, “I am sending you notification that Alamo Colleges District Human Resources department is in receipt of an ethics violation complaint from JBSA-Lackland, related to your facilitation of the BIOL 2402 class, during the Flex II Fall 2022 term.”
Varkey, who had taught at the college for 20 years, responded by asking exactly what the violation was, but Dawson didn’t respond. Later, on January 27, Varkey received a notice informing him of his termination of employment.
According to the notice of termination, several complaints were made about his alleged “religious preaching, discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals, anti-abortion rhetoric, and misogynistic banter.”
However, the letter from First Liberty argues that while Varkey is a “devout Christian,” he never “mentioned [it] in class” and did not “preach any of his beliefs.”
Furthermore, Varkey had been teaching students about the biology behind sex for his entire time at St. Philip’s and “no other students have ever complained” about the basic, scientific teaching.
According to the letter, “St. Philip’s College violated Title VII when it terminated Dr. Varkey because of his religious beliefs and protected speech. The only reason the College gave for firing him was the student complaint(s) of ‘religious preaching, discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals, anti-abortion rhetoric, and misogynistic banter.’”
“While Dr. Varkey did not preach or proselytize in class, the accusation of religious preaching was clearly in connection with the fact that he serves as an associate pastor,” the letter continues.
First Liberty promises to take legal action if Varkey is not reinstated.
The college’s seeming opposition to teaching that sex is based on chromosomes is in contradiction to basic biology. The National Library of Medicine states, “Two of the chromosomes (the X and the Y chromosome) determine your sex as male or female when you are born. They are called sex chromosomes: Females have 2 X chromosomes. Males have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome.”
In light of this, LifeSite reached out to Dawson inquiring why Varkey was fired for teaching something clearly defined by medical experts. However, the college vice-president didn’t respond by time of publication.