South Florida professor loses job after complaint about racial justice course segment

© Mike Stocker / South Florida/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/TNS Sam Joeckel, an English professor at Florida’s Palm Beach Atlantic University at his North Palm Beach home on Tuesday Feb. 21, 2023. Joeckel was terminated from the university in March after a parent complained about a racial justice component of his composition course.

Sam Joeckel walked into his office last week to find his phone and computer gone from his desk.

“My first instinct was to think someone broke into my office and actually stole my stuff. I calmed down a little bit and figured this must mean that the university has made a decision without telling me,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday.

Joeckel, a veteran English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, lost his job after a parent complained on Feb. 14 to the university president about a racial justice segment he taught in his composition course. What the complaint said specifically, Joeckel still doesn’t know, other than it was alleged he was “indoctrinating” students.

© Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/TNS Sam Joeckel, an English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, is seen at his North Palm Beach home on Feb. 21, 2023. Joeckel's contract with the Christian university has been terminated early after a parent complained about a racial justice unit he taught in one of his courses.

Joeckel, 50, announced Wednesday on Instagram that the private Christian university in West Palm Beach decided to terminate his contract early following a review of the racial justice section of his course. Joeckel said he was officially removed from the university’s payroll Wednesday.

“They did this for a clear reason: my decision to teach and speak about racial justice,” Joeckel wrote in his Instagram post. “The timing of this is not a coincidence as we are dealing with an ’anti-woke’ crusade from Governor DeSantis.”

Joeckel said the university admitted “someone was over eager and jumped the gun and removed my equipment before anyone had a chance” to tell him he was terminated.

Jason Masterson, a spokesperson for the university, declined to comment in an email Thursday. “On the advice of legal counsel, the university has no comment,” he said.

‘Smokescreen tactics’

Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference at Palm Beach Atlantic University the same day Joeckel, who taught at the university for more than 20 years, learned his unit was under review.

The professor had walked out of his classroom on Feb. 15 and saw a dean and provost waiting with a letter that said his contract renewal would be delayed. Other faculty members received their contract renewals that same day, he said.

Joeckel posted on social media last month about the encounter. Hundreds of comments from former students, alumni and others poured in. His story has since received national media attention.

On Feb. 17, Joeckel met with the dean to discuss his syllabus while a human resources representative listened. There was no mention of a specific concern with the course. But the human resources representative told Joeckel that his social media post from the day before violated the “do no harm” clause of the university’s policy, he said.

The policy reads: “Do No Harm: You play a vital role as an ambassador of Palm Beach Atlantic University, and this should be reflected in all actions online. Your communication on behalf of the university or as an individual should do no harm to Palm Beach Atlantic University, other individuals, or to yourself.”

On Feb. 23, a week after Joeckel learned his contract was delayed, PBAU President Debra Schwinn sent an email to students with the subject line “Update Regarding Dr. Sam Joeckel.”

In the email, Schwinn criticized the “many inaccuracies” in news reports about the situation. The issue at hand, she said, was that Joeckel was teaching about racial justice in a writing class.

The parent who complained had “a reasonable concern about Dr. Joeckel lecturing substantially on the history of racism and racial justice in a class designed to teach writing,” Schwinn wrote in the email.

Afterwards, she said, the dean and provost reached out to Joeckel and “shared their intention to schedule a time to review his syllabus with him so they could understand better the pedagogical rationale for including these lectures in a writing class.”

Later in the email, Schwinn went on to describe PBAU’s approach to teaching about racial issues from a “biblical worldview.”

“We are grieved that racial injustice abounds all around us,” she wrote. “In order to have meaningful conversations about this, all of PBA’s courses are taught from a traditional biblical worldview, affirming that humanity is broken and sinful, and that God is redeeming this brokenness through Jesus Christ and His Church ... We know that in our sinful and broken world, though all people groups are made in God’s divine image, they have not all been treated with equal dignity and respect over the centuries and into today. We make no attempt to alter historical facts. We do not shy away from discussing these issues, whether inside or outside the classroom.”

Joeckel said he had another meeting with the university’s provost and a human resources representative on March 7.

The human resources representative said it was reported Joeckel said “s---” in his classes. Then the representative said Joeckel had violated the university’s “anti-gay” policy by “saying something in class that was favorable of or positive toward LGBTQ issues or students,” Joeckel said. Joeckel denied violating the school policy.

There was no mention at the March 7 meeting of the initial complaint about the racial justice segment of his course, Joeckel said. He called the accusations mentioned in the meeting “smokescreen tactics.”

Student response

Joeckel has taught at the university since 2002. No one had never taken issue with any of his previous courses, he told the Sun Sentinel in February.

He taught three other sections as part of the course and dedicated the same amount of time to each of the other three topics — comedy and humor, gothic and horror and gender equality.

“All of these units are giving the students something interesting, engaging and maybe provocative that would serve as the basis for a good essay,” he said.

In the racial justice component, he discussed Martin Luther King Jr. and how he was not the beloved figure he is today during the civil rights movement. He discussed the evolution of racism and how it looks different today. He provided students with research polls and data about Americans’ viewpoints on racism, mass incarceration and the Black Lives Matter movement, he said.

Students also read the first chapter of a book called “The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism” by Jemar Tisby.

“It is a book on race and racism in the United States from a historical perspective and from a Christian perspective. So that reading assignment is, of course, perfect for a university like PBA,” he said.

He didn’t get to the conclusion of the class, where students are tasked with turning in a research essay focused on one of the four topics covered in class. Some chose to write their final essay on the racial justice topic, he said.

Current and former students describe Joeckel as a beloved professor who was well known on campus. Several were confused by Schwinn’s email and the allegation that he was indoctrinating students.

Chrissy Perez, 22, a former honors student at PBAU who graduated in 2022, took many of Joeckel’s honors courses, which she described as a mix of philosophy and history. In one course, Joeckel taught about modern-day social justice movements, including racial justice movements, Perez said, but it was “nothing radical at all.”

“The only thing that was even kind of unique about the unit was that it presented documents that were written by people of color rather than history about people of color written by white people,” she said.

Perez said he was not the only professor to teach writing courses that touched on racial justice. In a literature class during her freshman year, she said a different professor had students write about a piece by Alice Walker, a famous Black novelist and social activist, that also talked about racial issues.

“It’s not even a new practice,” she said.

Melanie Adonis-West, a senior majoring in theater, described Joeckel as a big supporter of the arts and a “protector” who made students feel like they belonged, including those who didn’t feel supported by the school, such as LGBTQ students.

The university states in its guiding document for student conduct that “students, faculty and staff will neither engage in nor promote views of sexuality or gender expression that contradict biblical standards,” that sex is intended to be between “a biological male and female,” and “gender follows biology.”

Joeckel, who is a member of an LGBTQ-affirming church, said he knows the university’s policies and adhered to them. He said he was the faculty sponsor of the College Democrats and that he had conversations with Schwinn about the university’s “anti-gay” policy when she took the post in 2020.

The university informed Joeckel’s attorney, Gabe Roberts, on March 10 that Joeckel was no longer to teach his classes, be on campus or communicate with colleagues or students. Roberts said he received a formal letter with the termination decision but could not discuss the specific contents of the letter.

Roberts said he believes the university breached Joeckel’s contract by terminating it early and that private institutions aren’t exempt from following Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits an employer from discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sex — including sexual orientation and gender identity — and national origin.

In 2020, Joeckel participated in a university-approved event about race and racism at PBAU, led by students of color.

“I was watching it, and I thought there is no way that I could do that now,” he said. “Times have changed so drastically. It’s shocking to me, the difference between then and now.”

Angie DiMichele can be reached at adimichele@sunsentinel.com, 754-971-0194 and on Twitter @angdimi.

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