A College of Texas at Arlington (UTA) philosophy lecturer who was seen in a viral video harassing a Christian evangelist says he is been positioned on administrative go away.
In a video shared on March 9, Charles Hermes, a UTA undergraduate advisor and senior lecturer of Philosophy, is seen shouting “No justice!” at a road preacher throughout a pro-abortion rally in Fort Value. The road preacher is heard asking, “Do you imagine in Jesus?” to a number of bystanders within the video.
At one level, Hermes stands in entrance of the unidentified preacher and says, “I do, I imagine in Jesus,” as he presses his head near the evangelist. Because the video zooms in, the preacher, Bible in hand, says to Hermes, “This isn’t your territory” and continues to evangelise to the group.
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A campus reporter enters the body and asks the preacher, “Why are you right here?” The preacher replies, “I’m right here as a result of I used to be introduced right here. I’m right here as a result of all the kids which might be dying. I’m right here as a result of the blind and confusion that the satan has put everybody’s coronary heart, everybody’s thoughts.”
The rally seemed to be a part of a March 8 occasion from the Tarrant County Democratic Get together titled Worldwide Ladies’s Day Unite and Resist held outdoors the county courthouse to “kick off Ladies’s Historical past Month by celebrating girls’s our bodies and supporting autonomy.”
That very same day, Hermes signaled in a Fb put up he could be attending the occasion, calling it a “good day for the Worldwide Ladies’s Day Marches. … Trying ahead to Dallas’s march.”
Simply at some point prior, on March 7, Hermes introduced the college positioned him on administrative go away.
“I do not know what to do. After 18 years of instructing at UTA I’ve been positioned on administrative go away. I am shocked and speechless. I am scared. I can not cease crying,” he mentioned. “A lot of who I’m comes from my love of our college students. I suppose I by no means thought this might occur. It has been such a tough semester, now this. I am so scared and unhappy.”
A UTA spokesperson advised The Christian Submit Tuesday that Hermes was positioned on administrative go away March 8 however declined additional remark.
Hermes’ suspension follows a number of years of activism, together with his arrest for felony trespassing final Might following his involvement in a pro-Palestinian rally.
Hermes has been arrested thrice within the final yr for civil disobedience expenses, native media outlet KERA notes. A March 7 letter from the chair of the UTA Philosophy and Humanities division cited by the outlet names “quite a few complaints” over his programs and instructing as justification to put Hermes on go away.
In 2018, Hermes was criticized for social media posts that appeared to condone hurt to President Donald Trump throughout his first time period in workplace. He later deleted the posts.
That very same yr, right-wing commentator Steven Crowder accused Hermes of calling Crowder an “alt-right Neo-Nazi,” and alleged Crowder advocated for the “homicide and extermination of Jews and LGBT individuals.”
Hermes as soon as reportedly spearheaded an internet petition drive calling on the American Philosophical Affiliation to ban faculties that discriminate primarily based on sexual orientation from posting open jobs with the group’s placement service.
He reportedly launched the marketing campaign in response to a “assertion of religion” required by a possible employer.
“To keep away from offending these Christians who love their neighbors, and who go away the judging for God, I’ll hereafter check with statements like these as statements of discrimination as a substitute of statements of religion,” Hermes reportedly wrote.
