Univ. of Dallas Alumni Seek Removal of Professor Over Transphobic Social Media Posts

A trans alumna’s demand that her Catholic university take action against a professor who has demeaned a trans woman who has been nominated for a high-ranking position in the Biden administration, has been rebuffed by the campus administration.

Bethany Beeler, a graduate at the University of Dallas, a Catholic school in Texas, started a petition calling for the removal of David Upham, chair of the school’s political philosophy department. Beeler called for Upham’s removal after he wrote a Facebook post deadnaming Dr. Rachel Levine and referring to her as male, Dallas News reported. Levine, a trans woman who previously served as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, has been nominated by the Biden administration to be Assistant Secretary for Health. Beeler’s petition was signed by 66 alumni. [Editor’s note: “Deadnaming” refers to the offensive practice of referring to trans people by the names they used before a transition instead of the new names they chose to more accurately reflect their gender identity.]

In the now-deleted post, Upham drew on conservative Catholic theology to make harmful statements about trans people in general and Levine in particular. According to the Dallas Observer, Upham “identified Levine by her former name … repeatedly referred to her as male and described as her being ‘surgically mutilated’ in her transition to becoming a trans woman.”

He went on to say:

“Dissenters will have to say ‘SHE’ and ‘WOMAN’ or ‘HE’ and ‘MAN’ even when they know it’s false … Dissenters will have to pay for and provide hormonal treatments that will materially harm men and women’s capacity to fulfill the command of almighty God to be fruitful and multiply by the mutual clinging of male and female.”

Beeler wrote, “His inflammatory descriptions of trans persons only promotes prejudice against, misconceptions about, and violence upon us.”

In a letter signed by President Thomas Hibbs and Provost Jonathan Sanford, university leadership said they would not take action against Upham. Dallas News reported:

“The leaders said that they would not yield to ‘external demands’ and that the school is ‘not in the business of limiting the speech of our faculty and staff when they speak on personal social media sites.’ They also reinforced the school’s commitment to the Catholic Church and its teachings.

“‘The university embraces unreservedly the Church’s articulation of the moral law, including its articulation of those truths that deal with the embodied nature of the human person and human sexuality,’ they wrote.”

Margaret Mary, a University of Dallas alumni who signed Beeler’s petition, felt that Upham’s Facebook post was a cause for concern for the university community. Mary told the Dallas Observer:

“‘It was a nasty post mocking a real person and inventing fake dystopian nightmares in which he himself is forced to participate in transgender surgeries, a complete fallacy … Truly it devalues my degree and everyone’s degrees in an increasingly progressive world to have our alma mater sanction hate speech.’”

Dallas News reported that Upham wrote another Facebook post where he doubled down on his position while assuring people his job was secure.

This incident isn’t the first controversy Upham has been involved in; previously, he opposed students starting a racial justice club at the university, reported the Dallas Observer.

In addition to the harm that incidents like this create for Levine, who as a public figure has frequently faced transphobic comments, behavior like Upham’s creates a university environment that is harmful to trans students. The administration’s statement about upholding Church teachings did not address how the university would help students who were harmed by the incident.

—Mac Svolos, New Ways Ministry, February 16, 2021