The Kansas University professor whose proposed class teaching intelligent design and creationism along with other myths has been beaten by thugs just outside of Lawrence, Kansas.
Religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said he was beaten early Monday morning on the side of the road in rural Douglas County by two unidentified men who’d been tailgating him in a large pickup truck. Mirecki said his attackers made references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks.
“I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they knew me,” he told the Lawrence Journal World.
Mirecki said in a phone interview that the incident happened as he was “going out for breakfast, taking a drive and thinking about things.” He declined to say exactly where it happened, and the Douglas County sheriff’s department did not release the location, except to say it was south of Lawrence.
Mirecki said that when the pickup truck began tailgating him, he stopped his vehicle hoping it would pass. Instead, the men pulled up directly behind him, he said.
“They got out, and I made the mistake of getting out,” he said.
Mirecki said the beating began almost instantly. The men punched him about the head and shoulders and struck him with a metal object, he said.
Lt. Kari Wempe, a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, said a deputy was dispatched to Lawrence Memorial Hospital after receiving a call at about 7 a.m. regarding a battery.
Mirecki was treated at the hospital and released.
“I’m mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots,” he said.
The sheriff’s office is classifying the case as an aggravated battery. On Monday afternoon, the office asked for the public’s help finding the suspects. Mirecki described them as two white males between the ages of 30 and 40, one wearing a red visor and wool gloves and both wearing jeans.
“The information that we have is pretty basic,” Lt. Wempe said. “Our investigators are working on it right now.”
Mirecki recently wrote online that he planned to teach intelligent design as mythology in an upcoming course. He wrote it would be a “nice slap” in the “big fat face” of fundamentalists.
The remarks caused an uproar, Mirecki apologized, and a few days later KU announced the class would be canceled after other controversial e-mails mocking conservative and fundamentalist fanatics became public.
As news of Monday’s events spread, Mirecki’s supporters expressed shock.
KU student Andrew Stangl, president of the Society for Open Minded Atheists and Agnostics at the university, described the attack as "bizarre and terrifying." He said Mirecki, who is the group's faculty adviser, was adamant that the beating was related to the recently canceled course. “This whole incident is starting to cast doubt that I can actually share my thoughts effectively without someone waiting for me at my car,” he said.
One of Mirecki’s most vocal critics, conservative activist John Altevogt, said he couldn’t imagine anyone he knows doing such a thing. But Altevogt said he was skeptical about whether Mirecki’s report was legitimate. “He (Mirecki) has very little credibility left,” Altevogt said. “The one thing that could save his bacon is to become a martyr of sorts, or to elicit sympathy from being the victim rather than the persecutor.”
When told that some people were questioning the truth of his report, Mirecki fired back.
“The right wing wants blood, period. They’re not going to stop until they see blood. They’re not into anything else,” he said. “Whatever I do, whatever I say, they don’t believe anything because that’s the way they are... I know what happened. I got the hell beat out of me. They can say what they want.” Sources: Lawrence Journal World, WIBW (Topeka), Topeka Capital Journal
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