Over the Christmas break, the President of Boston College quietly ordered crucifixes returned to classrooms.

The Observer at Boston College just published interesting reactions from chemistry professors including Prof. Amir H. Hoyveda (who says he suffered human rights abuses in Iran to defend freedom and tolerance), who denounced the crucifix as “insulting” to him personally and also as an intrusion on “the sacred space of the classroom.”

Prof. Lawrence T. Scott called the cross “offensive”: “Exposure to Catholicism is already widespread at BC, but it should not be escalated to the mounting of “religious art” on the walls of classrooms.”

For the good professor the cross on the wall “. . . resembles the unseemly marketing practice of ‘bait and switch.’ I was a full professor with tenure at a public university when Boston College induced me to move here.”