The University disciplined a longtime politics professor last week after concluding that he made "inappropriate, racial and discriminatory" comments during a class in late September which violated University nondiscrimination policy, according to documents obtained by the Justice.

Prof. Donald Hindley (POL) was notified of the action against him last Tuesday in a letter from Provost Marty Krauss, which he provided to the Justice.

Krauss assigned Assistant Provost Richard Silberman this week to begin attending POL144a-the Latin American politics course in which the infraction allegedly occurred-to "monitor" Hindley's lectures for speech that might violate University nondiscriminatory policy, the letters said. The University will also require Hindley to complete anti-discrimination training.

Hindley, who is in his 47th year teaching at the University, called the charges against him "ridiculous" and "totally out of the blue." He said that he has appealed to the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee and that his case has been accepted.

Many students enrolled in his course voiced opposition to the sanctions. In a show of support for Hindley, a group estimated at around 13 students, about a third of the class, walked out before Hindley's lecture last Thursday. The students marched from Rabb to the Bernstein-Marcus administration building, where they met briefly with Krauss before returning to class.

"We asked to know what was going on, why we weren't informed," said Lily Adams '09, who participated in the walk-out. She added: "It's become a sort of guilty until proven innocent. There's no dissenting view or no forum for students to speak out on his behalf."

Krauss said she told the students that the process was "confidential" because "it's important that people have the courage to come forward once they have a complaint."

At least one complaint appears to have stemmed from Hindley's reference to the term "wetbacks," a derogatory expression used to describe illegal immigrants who have crossed the Mexican border. Hindley defended his discussion of the term, saying he had used it to describe racism of a certain historical period. Throughout American history, he said, "When Mexicans come north as illegal immigrants, we call them wetbacks."

Adams also denied Hindley had used the term in an offensive context. "If he had made comments that were legitimately racist, the whole class would have complained," she said, adding, "It was never him saying, 'This is what I call them,' or, 'This is an appropriate term.'"

Continued...

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