Education

General Says He Was FIRED From Academic Post Over Transgender Bathroom Joke

Getty Images

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Blake Neff Reporter
Font Size:

A retired general who was serving as a visiting professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia says he’s been fired over his opposition to letting transgender people use opposite-sex bathrooms. But the college disagrees.

During his lengthy Army career, Gen. William Boykin commanded Delta Force and rose to the rank of three-star general. Since retiring, he has been Hampden-Sydney’s Wheat Visiting Professor of Leadership and has also been involved in various conservative Christian causes. Most notably, he is executive vice president of the Family Research Council.

Unsurprisingly, Boykin’s views have made him very critical of the recent push towards allowing transgender individuals unfettered access to opposite-sex restrooms. In March, while speaking at The Awakening 2016 conference, he said “the first man who goes in the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery.”

Now, two months later and one week after the Obama administration announced a new policy requiring all public schools to respect transgender students’ bathroom wishes, Boykin says his remark cost him his job at Hampden-Sydney.

“[After my Orlando remarks,] the LGBT community once again came after me, claiming that I was calling for violence against transgender‬ people,” Boykin said in a statement released Tuesday night on Facebook. “Well, that is simply not the case and I have never called for violence against anyone … My statement was meant to be humor and not a call for violence, which everyone in my audience understood as humor.”

“Nonetheless, I gave the LGBT community just what they needed to pressure the college leadership to terminate me and they did,” he added. “Too many years in the ‪‎Army‬ talking to soldiers still impedes my ability and willingness to say things that are not permissible under the PC rules and it has cost me a job.”

Rather than calling for Hampden-Sydney to restore him to his post, Boykins said the school’s decision was just part of a larger problem, and he urged supporters to sign a petition being pushed by the Family Research Council. The petition concerns President Obama’s recent decree that public schools must allow students to use the bathroom of their choice, and doesn’t mention Boykin’s situation at all.

Hampden-Sydney, though, contests Boykin’s description of his departure. The school sent a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation saying that Boykin was not fired and did not get in trouble for his remark. The statement suggested that Boykin was spreading “misinformation” about his departure.

“General Boykin was a part-time adjunct faculty member serving as the Wheat Professor, employed on a year-to-year basis,” the statement says. “Given the rotating nature of the Wheat Professorship, it is inaccurate to suggest that General Boykin was fired.  It is also an injustice to General Boykin’s service to Hampden-Sydney and its students. We are grateful for the contributions General Boykin made to our educational mission and the impact he had on our students.”

TheDCNF asked Boykin whether he could offer more evidence that his March remarks were the reason for his departure, but he has not yet responded to this inquiry.

Follow Blake on Twitter

Send tips to blake@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel