There have been a few stories from up north – St. Thomas University – about faculty accompanying students on school-sponsored trips, accompanied, in turn, by people to whom they are not married. There was considerable squawking about this a few months back, and a policy decision was eventually reached

Recently, St. Thomas was roiled by a dispute over its travel policy. Some faculty members demanded that unmarried faculty and staff who are romantically involved be allowed to share a hotel room when on official college trips with students.

Dease begged to differ.

He had the audacity to point out that St. Thomas, as a Catholic institution, could not turn a blind eye to blatant disregard for Catholic principles about sex outside of marriage — at least on school-sponsored trips with students.

More than 130 St. Thomas faculty and staff responded by signing a letter to the editor that appeared in the college newspaper. They rejected Dease’s position as "discriminatory" and "intolerable."

Dease listened to his critics. He convened a study committee. But in the end, he refused to cave. Last week, he announced that St. Thomas has no intention of telling its employees how to live their private lives. But when "faculty and staff accompany students … the university may rightly expect that [their] behavior be congruent with Catholic values."