One, many Douglas Giles
Reader comment on item: CAIR's Twisted Stand on Academic Freedom

Submitted by Edward G. Nilges (Hong Kong), Jul 31, 2008 at 07:59

... Giles was told not to mention "Zionism" in his class on World Religion, in a phone conversation with Susan Weininger and he refused, since Zionism is relevant to World Religions. His department chair, Weininger, who is now listed as "emerita" and is no longer department chair, lost control and told him that "Palestinians are animals". He was then fired by the chair, Susan Weininger when he refused to "obey" her.

Giles grieved this through his adjunct faculty union and the American Philosophical Association and won. The chair, who had been listed as ABD (all but dissertation) when in office and who according to online student comments on rateMyProfessor.COM was herself dysfunctional (late for classes, didn't know material) has been apparently terminated.

Roosevelt was in my view guilty of educational malpractice by so combining departments and offering only "just enough" classes in history, philosophy and art history to maintain acccreditation. This minimalism, an offense to the curiosity of working class students and students of color, started when I was an undergraduate at Roosevelt in 1970, and I wrote some pretty strong student editorials against it, labeling it "Bozo's Circus".

It is bad enough that what was a full-service department of philosophy when I taught as an adjunct in 1974 was folded into history and art history because of anti-intellectualism and a nasty elitism which assumes that working-class and minorities don't deserve to discuss philosophy and Zionism. ....

Edward G. Nilges

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