February 10-16, 2005

city beat

The Mad Professor

persona non grata: Gil-White says by linking the PLO to the Nazi extermination program, he sealed his fate at the University of Pennsylvania. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A Penn psychology teacher claims he's being silenced for controversial views.

by Doron Taussig

On Tuesday and Thursday nights, a small group of University of Pennsylvania students gathers in a stuffy dormitory common room for a class that won't appear on their transcripts. The university does not approve of the course, and it doesn't approve of the professor. So what brings the students here?

"The fact that they didn't want me to learn it," says Michelle Rajunov, a pretty tomboy with a Russian accent.

The class, "The Psychology of Ethnicity," explores the causes of racism and anti-semitism and is taught by Assistant Professor of Psychology Francisco Gil-White. He is a tall, angular, giraffe of a man who posted a "definition of self" on his personal Web site, stating, "I am equal parts ethnographer, evolutionary anthropologist, and psychologist."

In recent months, Gil-White, 35, has also defined himself as a victim. He claims that in two separate instances — first by not renewing his contract, then by not approving his class — the university discriminated against him for his political views. His allegations have touched a sensitive nerve in academia, where ideological bias is a common accusation, and he has caused a stir at Philly's resident Ivy. But it's not clear whether the professor has been supressed, or if he just instinctively blames large forces for his own errors.

In early 2002, Gil-White began contributing to "The Emperor's New Clothes," a Web site committed to unearthing conspiracies and suppressed information. He has co-authored an article for the site suggesting that President Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance and has written pieces arguing that Slobodan Milosevic, who is currently on trial for war crimes at the Hague, never engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. But his work on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, including assertions that the Palestinian Liberation Organization is a descendant of the Nazi extermination program, has caused him the most trouble.

In early 2003, Gil-White sent a draft paper on this topic to professors at Penn's Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict seeking feedback. Though he says no one disputed his documentation of facts, several professors expressed displeasure with his interpretation. His mentor, psychology professor Paul Rozin, told Gil-White via e-mail that the work could be "academic suicide." Rozin also disclosed that Ian Lustick, a political science professor specializing in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, disapproved. Gil-White says he believed these e-mails to be a message for him to drop the subject. He didn't, but he reported the exchange to the psychology department.

Soon, Gil-White's contract came up for renewal. After the department issued a lukewarm recommendation, the administration decided not to renew his contract, meaning Gil-White would be finished in June 2006. Gil-White, who is not shy about praising his own scholarship, suspected the decision was political. When a copy of the documents from his review was anonymously dropped in his mailbox, he says he felt vindicated: a letter, submitted by Lustick, stated Gil-White had "some fundamental misapprehensions about ... the relationship between theories and evidence." Gil-White maintains Lustick should have been left out of the process, and when Gil-White learned that Lustick had worked as a consultant for the U.S. government, he believed he knew why he wasn't: in a Web posting titled "Did U.S. intelligence fire Prof. Gil-White?" he wrote, "the controlling force behind the attempt to fire me is [Lustick]. The reason is that my investigative journalism is an embarrassment to U.S. intelligence."

The University of Pennsylvania would not comment except to say it "has not and will not make personnel decisions on political grounds." The professors involved also declined comment. But Rozin's e-mails, available on Gil-White's Web site, imply he inappropriately used his courses as a philosophical soapbox. "Your impassioned endorsement gets in the way of your communicating, and causes people to doubt you," Rozin wrote.

Gil-White maintains that he acted professionally and that the university just wants to silence him. He has a similar theory about the spring-semester cancellation (he prefers "banning") of "The Psychology of Ethnicity." In an e-mail to Gil-White, a psychology department representative expressed concern about the course readings, which seemed geared toward the promotion of the same controversial points. Gil-White refused to make changes, and even after receiving a petition with 87 signatures, the department decided not to offer credit for the course.

Now Gil-White is teaching the course for no credit and fighting the school's decision not to reappoint him. He knows this approach may hurt his chances at a future academic position, but he believes he's doing the right thing.

"There's no question that I'm paying a cost for telling the truth," he says. "It's worth risking your career over."