UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich said the university would take administrative action following a “furor” that erupted after a professor sent a “hurtful and condescending” e-mail to a student.

Tom Hilton, chairman of the university’s information systems department, sent an e-mail in late September urging senior Crystal Kazik to reconsider hosting the Eau Queer Film Festival, a gay- and lesbian-friendly event that Kazik helped organize.

“I decry attempts to legitimize (homosexuals’) addictions and compulsions. These, our fellow humans, deserve our best efforts to help them recover their lives. We only hurt them further when we choose to pretend that these walking wounded are OK the way they are, that their present injuries are the best they can hope for in life,” Hilton wrote in an e-mail Sept. 24 to Kazik and Judith Gray, an administrative assistant for the women’s studies department.

The message was in response to an earlier e-mail that Kazik sent asking for faculty to support the film festival, an LGBTQA-friendly event that ran Thursday through Sunday at the university. (LGBTQA stands for lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-questioning/queer-allies.)

In his e-mail, Hilton said he grew up in San Francisco and “was sad to see the problems of prejudice and discrimination my gay friends endured, but I also see quite clearly that homosexual behavior damages its participants, their loved ones, and the communities that sanction it.”

Hilton said Wednesday he had worded his e-mail “very badly” and was sorry for the incident. He added he will cooperate with the university if it takes action against him.

“I feel really badly about what I said,” Hilton said.

Kazik declined comment Wednesday.

Kazik was among a handful of students and faculty who traveled to San Francisco in June as part of a women’s studies class that included visits to an LGBTQA parade and film festival. The trip led to the launching this year of the first-ever Eau Queer Film Festival, which included student-made documentaries.

In September, Kazik sent an e-mail to university personnel asking for help from faculty publicizing the film festival.

“Such an e-mail (as Hilton’s) can neither educate nor contribute to dialogue or understanding. This will be addressed administratively,” Levin-Stankevich said in a written statement.

Levin-Stankevich told the Leader-Telegram on Wednesday that any action taken will not be made public.

The chancellor said in the statement he has worked to enhance equity and diversity at UW-Eau Claire, pointing to the Chancellor’s Diversity Advisory Commission, the LGBT Advisory Board and the Hate and Bias Incident Response Team, all of which are aimed at improving the campus’ environment for gay and lesbian students.

The chancellor also said in the statement: “It is not the prerogative or the role of the administration to censor or prevent freedom of expression or to forbid the expression of ideas, however offensive they might be to others.

“It is our responsibility to address the appropriateness of the time and place of expression and whether the intent or result of the speech inhibits the educational process.”