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Student Says Mention of 'Prayer' Enrages Professor
By Jim Brown
AgapePress
October 18, 2006

AgapePress -- "For Christ and Humanity." That's the motto of Olivet College in Michigan, where a Christian student says he was punished by one of his professors for making a reference to God in the classroom.

Olivet College freshman Jeremiah Bannister, an aspiring journalist, claims he was recently the target of anti-Christian bigotry and grade retaliation in his "Writing and Rhetoric" class. Bannister says Professor Austin Jackson, a Sunni Muslim, took exception to an essay he and another student had written opposing affirmative action and slavery reparations.

The freshman shares that when he was asked by the professor to voice his personal opinion on what African-Americans can do to overcome historical prejudice, one of his suggestions was prayer -- a response that upset the educator.

"He was very, very angry about it," says Bannister, "[and] said that invoking God in class was unacceptable; that it was anti-intellectual, that it was belligerent, and [that] it was completely unacceptable in his classroom. And he actually docked us 10 points from our grade because I invoked God in my opinion of what could be done."

According to Bannister, he was instructed to never mention anything about God or Jesus in the classroom. He says he has talked to the school about the situation.

"I guess there were numerous standards of the school handbook policy that were broken by the professor in doing what he did, but they are going to be addressing the problem," says the student, who suspects he may be asked represent other Christian students before school officials.

"I may also have to speak before the administration of the school on the issue of the treatment of Christians and the Christian worldview on campus, and the general feeling amongst many Christian students that we are being marginalized and even oppressed in many areas and treated badly."

Jackson, who is a doctoral student in the African American and African Studies Program as well as a full-time professor at Michigan State University, is an open proponent of communism.

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