UW-Eau Claire Information Studies Department head Tom Hilton will be reprimanded for sending an offensive e-mail to two students in late September.
According to the e-mails posted by the school's paper, The Spectator, senior Crystal Kazik originally e-mailed Hilton to request his department hang up signs for the Eau Queer Film Festival, an LGBTQ event she was organizing.
In response, he wrote in an e-mail, ""homosexual behavior damages its participants, their loved ones, and the communities that sanction it."" Hilton said he decries ""attempts to legitimize [homosexuals'] addictions and compulsions.""
""These, our fellow humans, deserve our best efforts to help them recover their lives,"" he said in the e-mail. ""We only hurt them further when we choose to pretend that these walking wounded are okay the way they are, that their present injuries are the best they can hope for in life.""
UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich released a statement condemning Hilton's actions.
The contents of the e-mail were ""problematic"" on their own, Levin-Stankevich said, but are made worse by the fact it came from a figure of authority.
""Such an e-mail can neither educate nor contribute to dialogue or understanding,"" he said in a statement. ""This will be addressed administratively.""
Levin-Stankevich made it clear Hilton's e-mail was not reflective of the rest of the university.
""The content of the e-mail to the student is strictly the personal viewpoint of the individual sender,"" he said. ""The views of that writer are not my views nor those of my administration.""
