Denial of Tenure for Father Curran Assailed : Academia: The faculty has threatened the president of Auburn University with censure or a no-confidence vote after he blocked a permanent post for the controversial Catholic theologian.

Auburn University faculty members, threatening censure or a no-confidence vote, have demanded that the school’s president explain by Friday why he has blocked a tenured professorship for controversial Catholic theologian Charles E. Curran.

Father Curran was barred by the Vatican four years ago from teaching theology at Catholic University of America because of his vocal disagreements over traditional church teachings on sexual ethics.

Curran said he agreed to join the faculty of the Alabama school in July because he felt it was a place where he could escape controversy and because he received an attractive offer, including a promise from the dean of the liberal arts college that he would be granted tenure.

But within days after Curran accepted the endowed professorship, Auburn President James E. Martin denied the tenure offer for reasons he has not fully disclosed. Martin has said that one of the reasons for his action was his concern that Curran would use the university as a platform to continue his quarrel with Catholic University.

Curran, who had been a visiting professor at USC for two years ending last June, was given a one-year visiting professorship.

But an angry Auburn faculty has rebelled.

Calling Curran “perhaps the most distinguished scholar ever” to teach there, a faculty report on Nov. 13 said that Martin withheld his main reason for denying tenure even while hinting that Curran would create controversy. Martin declined to comment.

The professors have given Martin until Friday to provide convincing reasons in writing or face the possibility of either censure for violating the tenure process or a no-confidence vote by the faculty.

“Very few presidents can continue in office if the faculty no longer has confidence in them,” Gary Mullen, chairman of the University Senate, said. Mullen pointed out that Auburn President Hanly Funderburk resigned in 1983 after the faculty gave him two no-confidence votes.

“I’ve never seen the faculty as deeply concerned and as unanimous as in this case,” said Mullen, a professor of entomology.

Curran was a tenured professor at Catholic University in Washington in 1986 when the Vatican said that he could no longer teach theology at the papal-chartered university. Curran’s differences with official Catholic teachings on sexual ethics had been the subject of seven years of exchanges with the Vatican.

Curran sued the university for breaching his contract, but a District of Columbia Superior Court judge ruled against him in February, 1989. Curran did not appeal the decision.

The American Assn. of University Professors last June placed Catholic University on its censure list, saying that Curran was denied his post “without due process and and without adequate cause.”

The priest-scholar, who has 200 published articles and books, was considered a catch last April by some Auburn faculty members looking to fill a newly endowed chair in its small religion department.

“He has an impeccable record as a scholar and a theologian,” Mullen said. “We were thrilled to get him,” said a member of the university’s search team.

Curran said he was negotiating with three other institutions when “Auburn was pressing me for an early response.” The offer, advertised as one with tenure, included a light teaching load, a $10,000 yearly travel fund and ample time for research and writing.

“I told them by phone on April 16 that I would accept the offer, and burned my bridges (to other institutions),” he said. Days later, Curran learned that he was not going to get tenure. But by then it was too late to accept any other offer, Curran said, so he signed the one-year contract.

Curran said he had two meetings in September with Martin, but the university president refused to talk about the tenure matter. “It was like George Bush and Saddam Hussein talking about tennis,” said Curran.

But the faculty report included a number of possible reasons for Martin’s decision. One faculty member said that Martin believed that Curran had “closed down” Catholic University. That may have been a reference to a 1967 strike by students and faculty to protest a vote by the Catholic University Board of Trustees to fire Curran, who had led a popular protest against the Vatican’s reaffirmed ban on artificial birth control. The campus strike forced the trustees to reverse their action.

The faculty report said that Martin also told faculty members, “If you knew what I know, you would probably feel the way I do.” Another reason, Mullen said, may have been Curran’s inquiry last spring about academic freedom at Auburn. The 22,000-student state university is still under censure by the American Assn. of University Professors over a 1983 firing at the campus.

Curran said association officials and Auburn professors assured him that progress was being made toward lifting the censure. But Mullen said that the university president may have interpreted Curran’s inquiries as evidence of his controversial nature.

Faculty members also accused the president of being influenced by some Auburn trustees.

A recent statement from the university’s Board of Trustees backed Martin, saying that his six-year record at Auburn shows “his actions are based upon the best available information and . . . what he perceives to be the best long-term interest of this university.”

Curran said he is “a spectator, not a player,” in this dispute, which was first described to the press by other faculty members.

Curran said he went to Auburn “simply to pursue my own scholarship.” He said he had ended his dispute with Catholic University. “I wasn’t going to run away from issues (in Catholicism), but my primary place is in the library and the classroom,” he said.