The College Fix

Maine GOP lawmakers demand firing of professor over bias against conservative student

An English professor at Eastern Maine Community College faces blowback — including calls from Republican lawmakers in the state to resign — after instructing a Christian conservative student to drop the issue of gun rights from her essay.

Katherine Parker, a student at Eastern Maine Community College, was instructed to choose a topic for a persuasive essay assignment in Professor Carol Lewandowski’s oral communications class.

After choosing a topic, students were to identify and respond to an opinion piece from a public source. Parker chose a piece from Maine columnist Douglas Rooks titled “Maine Legislature derelict in its duty on ‘red flag.”

In it, the longtime journalist called for the Maine legislature to hold a public hearing on a red flag bill, which would allow firearm removal from individuals posing imminent danger, and to ultimately pass the measure, calling it a “reasonable” restriction on the right to keep and bear arms. Parker agreed with holding a hearing, but objected to restricting gun rights.

“I’m a big Second Amendment advocate,” she told The College Fix in a telephone interview. “I believe everyone should have the right to defend themselves and defend their family, and to defend against tyrannical government, should the case arise.”

Professor Lewandowski’s feedback was, in Parker’s words, a “ridiculously rude and unprofessional response.” The email stated in part:

This is riddled with numerous logical fallacies (faulty cause, equivocation, faulty comparisons, to name a few) and misinterpretation of intentions of legalities. You also do not have a plan in the intro, nor do you state the biblio info.

I appreciate your opinion but you have to 1. follow the assignment reqs in the intro and biblio info, and 2. avoid proselytizing with logical fallacies in a college class.

Wasn’t your former speech a testimony to finding Jesus. Did Jesus pack heat?

I find this 2nd amendment nonsense exhausting and highly recommend you choose a different topic since this one is not one I can easily grade, given my own disdain for the misinterpretations of the second amendment. hate to tell ya, but guns DO kill. Just ask the victims of the 200 shootings this year, or the parents of the Uvalde kids, or the dancers at the Orlando club shooting, or the parents of the Sandy Hook victims, or the families who lost their kids’ lives at the VA Tech shooting, or the El Paso Walmart victims’ families …

Upon receiving the email, Parker said she was taken aback by the “personal attack on my character and what I believe.” She said she refused to change her topic, which elicited another email.

“Please change your topic as I earlier requested as this is a trigger issue for me. No pun intended,” the professor wrote. “…I admit I cannot assess the gun issue objectively. I want to be fair to you and request, again, that you choose a different topic. This is my second request. I hope you will be fair to me.”

According to reporting from The Maine Wire, which published screenshots of the two emails, Lewandowski has worked at the college since 1995, and has been open about her political beliefs, contributing $200 to the Kamala Harris campaign.

Several emails obtained by the Wire also appear to confirm this. In them, she bemoaned the loss of Harris in 2024, suggesting Trump is unfit and calling the results akin to a death in the family.

Laura Whitcomb, Parker’s mother and the president of Gun Owners of Maine, told The College Fix “it was evident by her brazenness that she has done [this] before, and gotten away with it.” She added that “when enough people say they aren’t going to allow it anymore, then things will change.”

Parker met with the dean of students, but said she came away unsatisfied and worried about future suppression toward other students. She told The Fix she believes Lewandowski should be dismissed. Failing that, she said she is “willing to take further action.”

State legislators in Maine share her concern. Forty-eight Republicans in the Maine House signed a letter calling for Lewandowski’s termination. They argue she allegedly made inappropriate comments, attempted to intimidate and silence students, and mocked a student’s Christian faith.

Both Lewandowski and the EMCC media relations team did not respond to The College Fix’s requests for comment.

Douglas Rooks, author of the opinion piece Parker originally wrote on, expressed concern over the developments in a phone conversation with The Fix.

“This is a very difficult moment in our history,” he said. Still, he said he “found the comments by the professor to be somewhat inappropriate and overzealous.”

Graham Piro, lead faculty legal defense fund fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the professor’s actions are a “pretty extreme situation.”

Outlining the case, Piro said “the student completed the assignment within the parameters set by the faculty member, and then the faculty member turned around and said ‘I disagree with the topic you chose based on the viewpoint you’re taking.’”

Even though “faculty have a significant amount of leeway over the control of their classroom,” the professor’s refusal and attack on Parker “raise serious questions,” he said.

Piro cautioned against the calls for termination, saying “lawmakers should be very wary when they are making statements calling for disciplinary action.”

As of June 16, Professor Lewandowski is listed as an employee on the college’s website.

“It is not … the responsibility of professors to shield their students from upsetting materials, but to give them the critical thinking skills and ability to encounter that material,” Piro said. “That is part of the objectives of a college classroom.”

MORE: SCOTUS declines to review campus bias response teams amid free speech debate

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