University of Kansas professor reportedly beaten

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported beating of a University of Kansas professor who wrote that teaching intelligent design as mythology would be a “nice slap” in the “big fat face” of Christian fundamentalists.

Religious studies professor Paul Mirecki, who gained notoriety for his Internet tirades against Christian fundamentalists and Catholics, told the Lawrence Journal-World that he was beaten early Dec. 5 on the side of a rural road. Mirecki told the newspaper that two unidentified men had been tailgating him in a large truck and said the 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 said. Mirecki described himself as “mostly shaken up” with bruises and sore spots. On Dec. 2, the university withdrew plans to offer a course this spring that Mirecki had titled Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies. The decision came after e-mails Mirecki sent to an Internet discussion site for student atheists were publicized.