If this is what hiring more conservatives at colleges looks like, I say no thanks

Jesus H. Christ:

Students expressed shock last week when a popular history professor suddenly was dismissed. Then many expressed disbelief after they discovered an audio-enhanced website where he spoke out against Jews and blacks, including FDU basketball players.

"He was my favorite professor," said one student. "I can't believe it is the same man."

In fact, Jacques Pluss, an adjunct professor at the Metropolitan Campus, openly discussed his March 21 dismissal from Fairleigh Dickinson in a 44-minute interview on a website of the National Socialist Movement designed with swastikas and a picture of Adolf Hitler.

Pluss said he was "removed" from his classroom duties when he received a brief phone call at 5:30 p.m. from the department chairman who, he said, told him he was being released "for the convenience of the university" the following day. "I was stolen away in the night," he said. Pluss reported that he will be paid his salary through the end of this semester. He also said he will retire from "the academic world" and devote himself to the cause of the White Aryan Race Nation.

The professor speculated that he was dismissed because of his work with the National Socialist Movement on the internet, adding that the university "followed the typical Jewish, lawyerly, Hebrew line." He suggested that a "watchdog group" may have alerted FDU about his activities beyond the classroom.

During one segment of the conversation, Pluss said the university did not want adverse publicity while its Division 1 basketball team was in the NCAA playoffs. He said the players are "n--- to the core" and "sit in the back of my class with CDs and earphones" listening to "ghastly rap music."

Earlier in the same broadcast, Pluss referred to the "browning of America" and called FDU a "heavily Judaized institution" with a large minority student population. He said those students are "floating their way through school on taxpayer dollars," adding that it (FDU) is "not just browned, but singed." He also discussed attending a recent "gathering" of the White Aryan Race Nation in South Carolina, commenting that he had been gratified by the turnout.

Here's my question, though...was he spouting stuff like this in the classroom? I'm really kind of two minds on this. If he's essentially a neo-Nazi in his spare time, that's his own business until and unless he engages in illegal activities (like persecuting Jews, lynchings, and some of the other lovely things groups like the NSM might decide to engage in). If that doesn't come out in the classroom, I'd be inclined to say it's his own business. On the other hand, he's a history professor. I would imagine he'd find it very difficult to teach accurately about things like slavery and the Holocaust, given his views. FDU (where I attended grad school) is a pretty diverse campus community, and while I understand the university's wanting to wash their hands of someone like this, I think that more information about whether he's bringing his nutty views into the classroom is in order. The reason I say this is because there's a huge push now to get more "conservatives" (read: wingnuts) into campuses. If that happens, I can imagine a situation in which membership in organizations like ACT, HRC, and the ACLU could get you kicked out of your job.