DePaul prof out after offering microbiology students an optional assignment on Israel's 'genocide'
DePaul University recently fired a professor for including an optional assignment in a microbiologoy course, which accused Israel of 'genocide.'
The assignment asked students to comment on 'the impact of genocide/ethnic cleansing on the health/biology of the people it impacts.'
DePaul University in Chicago recently fired a professor for including an optional assignment in a microbiologoy course that accused Israel of “genocide.”
The assignment asked students to comment on “the impact of genocide/ethnic cleansing on the health/biology of the people it impacts.”
The professor, Anne d’Aquino, was reportedly hired on April 1, and gave out the assignment on May 6, when Israel carried out part of its counterattack against the terrorist group Hamas.
“Today, Israel rejected a ceasefire deal and continues to bomb Rafah, where over 600,000 children are currently sheltering,” d’Aquino wrote in the description for the optional assignment. “Many view this as the last phase of the genocide/ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinian people.”
“I encourage students to use scientific analysis and critical thinking to understand and communicate the impacts of genocide on human biology, and the creation of a decolonized future that promotes liberation and resists systemic oppression,” d’Aquino wrote in the message.
“Students were distracted,” d’Aquino said after her dismissal. “A lot of them were volunteering at the encampment. A lot of them had friends that were at the encampment.”
The course was supposed to “[introduce] students to the diverse microorganisms that cause significant disease within the human population,” the university explained in a statement to CBS.
”On May 8, we received multiple complaints from students regarding an assignment in Health 194, Human Pathogens and Defense,” the university wrote. “The students expressed significant concern about the introduction of political matters into the class. We investigated the matter, spoke with the faculty member, and found it had negatively affected the learning environment.”
”The class now has a new instructor, and the faculty member has been released from their appointment as a part-time faculty member at DePaul University,” the school also noted.
DePaul, like many schools around the nation, experienced a two-week-long pro-Hamas encampment that the university was eventually made to disperse due to non-compliance on the part of protesters.
The president of DePaul, Robert Manuel, wrote in a statement on May 16 that the situation at the encampment had “steadily escalated” and resulted in “credible threats of violence” and “physical altercations.”
Campus Reform has contacted DePaul University and Anne d’Aquino for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
