University Ordered to Pay Over $710,000 for Discriminating against Christian Professor

Teresa Neumann : Jun 12, 2014
Heather Clark – Christian News Network

"This is a great day, not only for Dr. Adam, but for all who value academic freedom. It sends a message to all public universities that they should not engage in this type of unconstitutional injustice and think there will be no consequences." -Kevin Theriot, Alliance Defending Freedom

(Greenville, NC)—When former atheist Mike Adams, a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, became a Christian in 2000, his entire worldview changed, and in 2006, when he was up for a promotion at the university to full-professor status, he was denied because of it. (Photo via ChristianNews.net)

In his stead, Dr. Kimberly J. Cook, an atheist, took over the chair of Adam's department, having stated that the ideal candidate for that position, in her estimation, was lesbian.

In response to the discrimination Adams felt he'd been subjected to, he filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the university. In 2010, the District court ruled in the university's favor, but Adams didn't give up and appealed that decision to the 4th Circuit.

The ruling from that appeal is now in and according to a Christian News Network report, the university has been ordered to pay $710,000 in attorney's fee for Adam's unlawful discrimination after already ordering the university to promote Adams to full professor status and pay him $50,000 in back pay to April.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Travis Barham, said that the jury "concluded that the University of North Carolina-Wilmington retaliated against Dr. Adams by denying him a promotion in 2006 and they retaliated against him because they did not like the views he expressed in his books and columns and speeches."