Columbia University anthropology professor Nicholas "Million Mogadishus" De Genova returned to his teaching duties Tuesday, accompanied by two campus guards. "I will not be silenced," he told his students. Neither, it seems, will Columbia students, who continue to express their disgust at De Genova's comments and their dismay that their school is not only the seat of such commentary, but, as the employer of professors like De Genova, the sponsor of it. Check out this piece in the Columbia Spectator, and this one.

Last week the Spectator rejected a proposed ad demanding that De Genova be fired. The ad was sponsored by the Jewish Defense Organization, and it called De Genova an "enemy of Israel" and an "enemy of America." The JDO was not happy. "This pig professor is extended more rights than the Jewish Defense Organization. Where is our free speech to run him out of his job?" a spokesman told New York Newsday. The Spectator has a policy against running political ads.

UPDATE: The Columbia Spectator has the details on De Genova's return and on Columbia University's official stance toward him.

Erin, aside from whatever legalities may pertain (e.g. code of conduct), I am interested in your opinion (also the opinion of others): Do you think De Genova should be fired? Other academics are reported on here (and quite rightly) because of some abuse more directly related to teaching, or creating an improper academic atmosphere (and such). I do not remember reading anything about De Genova in this regard -- just his infamous appearance and statements at an event outside of class. Right now I have no strong opinion myself, which is not to say I don't find his statements repugnant.

EH,

I posted at length on your question last week: http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/000591.html.

I wonder how effective he is going to be at teaching anthropology for the rest of this semester. His tuition-paying students may have gotten the short end of the stick.

The comments in the two linked articles published in Columbia Spectator are troubling in that they could be assumed to be indicative. The first begins by asserting the ethos of a client/customer relationship increasingly evident in universities in the western world. The second opinion piece is representative of a western conservative bastardising of the ideals of free speech. "How ironic that the academics who enjoy America's freedom of speech always criticize the military that defends for us that freedom." Perhaps it is appropriate to counter such comment with the following quote as posted on the blog of a Baghdad resident. "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." Samuel P. Huntington

Iain,
What exactly do you mean by "western conservative bastardizing" of free speech, other than perhaps speech the contents of which you don't agree with? You and I are enjoying this "western" style freely and openly, and I must say I at least much prefer it to the "nonwestern" style recently on display from the regime of Saddam Hussein (even though Baghdad Bob did provide much comic relief).
BTW, The Huntington quote seems to me to be so sweepingly general and unverifiable as to be meaningless, even if it did come down to us poor westerners from a Baghdad blog.

As to whether he should be fired (if I may chime in), of course not. That's why the Representatives who signed that letter in Congress looked so idiotic. But I do find it fascinating that a high-profile department of anthropology in the United States would hire a doctrinaire -- well, a doctrinaire anything, given what we all hope legitimate intellectual discourse might look like -- but a doctrinaire communist. I mean, I know some of these people are still around in English departments, and I know France and some corners of academic America flirted with Maoism a few years ago, but a real party hack? Today? Does his having been hired represent some sort of proustian longing on the part of fallen-away '68 types for an icon - a mascot - of the movement in their midst? It's as if a liberal/reform rabbinical school decided to hire a hectoring black-hatted ultra-orthodox rabbi, just to have him around as a reminder of some long-lost purity...Or is it a kind of hip ironic gesture -- like those cafes in post-communist Europe that have big propaganda photos of Lenin and Stalin on the walls??

Easy answer: Yes, he should be fired. This person used his position as a teacher and a professor to express his twisted viewpoints onto the impressionable, and often naive, minds of youthful college students. Personally, I believe he violated ethics and should be punished.