CV NEWS FEED // When a biology professor taught the fundamentals of the human reproductive system to his students at a Texas community college last fall, four students were offended and walked out of his class. In January 2023, he was fired for his “religious preaching.”
On November 28, 2022, Dr. Johnson Varkey told his students that chromosomes determine male or female sex. He said in class that procreative sex, necessary for the propagation of the species, is between males and females.
During the same class, he also explained that when a sperm fertilizes an egg, it creates a zygote with 46 chromosomes. “If we allow that to continue, we have a beautiful baby,” Varkey said. He told his class that no information is added or removed after the zygote is formed. “That zygote is the beginning of life, not birth.”
Varkey was fired in January.
He tells his side of the story in an interview on First Liberty Live. The professor says that when he lectures on biological sex, he emphasizes chromosomes. He recalls telling the class, “That’s what makes male and female, not our thinking.”
Varkey has taught at St. Philip’s College in San Antonio since 2003. He offered the biology class, Human Anatomy and Physiology, to 1,500 students over the course of his twenty years at St. Philip’s College.
“I was a research scientist, but my passion was to teach all the time,” Varkey told the law firm First Liberty Institute, a Christian nonprofit.
In Varkey’s termination letter, the college said he was fired for “religious preaching” in class, “misogynistic banter,” “anti-abortion rhetoric,” and “discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgenders,” according to First Liberty.
Varkey denies this accusation. “I don’t bring my preaching into my classroom,” says Varkey, who is also an associate pastor at his local church.
First Liberty defends Varkey’s past performance as a teacher.
“[He] consistently received exemplary performance reviews and was never subject to discipline,” says First Liberty. “He never discussed with any student his personal views—religious or otherwise—on human gender or sexuality.”
First Liberty sent the community college a letter insisting on Varkey’s reinstatement. The law firm alleges that the college broke several laws in its decision to fire him.
“When decision makers at St. Philip’s College terminated Varkey because of his religious beliefs and classroom statements about biology, they violated several federal and state laws, including the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” First Liberty told the college in the letter.
As a professing Christian, Varkey volunteers as an associate pastor at his church and hosts a biblical radio ministry.
He is not the only scientist being punished for talking about biological facts.
Dr. Michael Joyner, who studies the effect of exercise on the nervous system at the Mayo Clinic, was suspended after going public on the science behind “transgender” athletes. He specializes in the physiology of elite athletes, blood flow during exercise, and plasma, among other topics.
Joyner came under fire for saying that after puberty, there are “dramatic differences” in boys and girls’ sports performance in June 2022. Earlier this year, Joyner also shared his frustration with those who dismissed plasma as a Covid treatment. The Mayo Clinic requested that he run media requests through them and “stick to prescribed messaging.”
“The college did not follow their own procedure as they did not allow Varkey to respond to, or even see, the student complaints,” says First Liberty Counsel Keisha Russell.
Russell claims that even if Varkey had been making religious statements, the school would still be violating religious freedom and federal employment laws by firing him.
“The college made it a religious liberty case because they said: ‘we’re firing you because of your religious speech,’” says Russell.
Professor Varkey is eager to return to teaching at St. Philip’s College.
“I want my position back,” he says. “They need to reinstate me back and help me to do what I love to do, which is teach.”
