April 4, 2005

Nazi Loses Teaching Job

Fairleigh Dickinson University last week dismissed an adjunct professor who is a leader of the National Socialist Movement of the United States, also known as the American Nazi Party.

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The university says that it dismissed Jacques Pluss for missing too many classes. He denies this and says that he lost his job because of his political views. Pluss has taught for several years in the history department at Fairleigh Dickinson and was previously a tenured professor of history at William Paterson.

In an interview Saturday, he said that he became active in Nazi politics only in the last year. He is identified on the party’s Web site as being in charge of the “Office of Information.”

The Equinox, the student paper at Fairleigh Dickinson, reported that students who have taken courses with Pluss were stunned by the news that their professor was a Nazi, and that most of them said that they could think of nothing in his courses that suggested his political leanings. One student, however, was quoted as saying that in hindsight she could see things about his teaching that were unusual, such as an assignment that students write a journal from the perspective of a German soldier during World War II.

Pluss was teaching the History of Western Civilization this semester and was informed Monday that he was being replaced immediately, although he would be paid for the rest of the semester.

In an interview, Pluss stressed his academic credentials (a University of Chicago Ph.D. in medieval history) and his commitment to keeping his politics out of his teaching. “I never brought my beliefs into the classroom or shared them with my colleagues,” he said. He said it would be “complete nonsense” to say that Nazis shouldn’t teach at colleges.

“Many of us have political views. Some are mainstream, some are extreme, some are left and some are right,” he said. “I just stick to teaching the material.”

He said that that the assignment about the Nazi soldier was to write a short essay about the perspective such a German would have had during the Battle of Stalingrad. “I wanted to get across the point that war is war and all soldiers bleed.”

Pluss said that he taught World War II “from all perspectives,” declining to elaborate. During courses that cover the period of the Holocaust, Pluss said that he taught about the “ghastly event” in a way similar to most professors. Asked if he believed that the Nazis had killed six million Jews, Pluss declined to comment.

He also declined to elaborate on quotations in The Equinox, from an interview he gave that paper and from radio shows, but he said that the quotes were correct. Among those comments, he called Fairleigh Dickinson a “heavily Judaized institution” that had taken “the typical Jewish, lawyerly, Hebrew line” in dismissing him. The Equinox also said that he used racial slurs to describe black basketball players at the university.

In the interview with Inside Higher Ed, Pluss said that his views were consistent with the platform of the National Socialist Movement. That document, among other things, calls for stripping U.S. citizenship from anyone who is Jewish, gay or not white. The Nazi Web site also features photographs of Hitler, drawings of marching Nazi soldiers, photographs of American Nazis in their uniforms, and images of the U.S. flag.

Fairleigh Dickinson officials were not available for comment over the weekend. But John Snyder, a dean at the university, told NorthJersey.com that Pluss was dismissed for missing too many courses, not his views, which Snyder said the university only learned about this week. But Snyder was also quoted as saying that Nazi views made it impossible for Pluss to ever receive another teaching assignment.

“It’s not politics, it’s hate mongering,'’ Snyder said. “It’s just hatred directed at the very students he taught. His position would be untenable on the basis of student welfare. It’s our job to see to it that students are treated with respect and security.”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Freedom of speech for those who hate freedom of speech...

I am supportive of the ACLU and its aims. But I actually looked at the platform of the NSM (following the link in the article), and one of the 25 points the NSM is fighting for is basically an end to free speech. If the National Socialist Movement were to have its way, freedom of speech would be constrained and only English-speaking, American citizens who supported the NSM would be allowed to publish.

What a condundrum the Nazi case puts us in...

nonplussed, hmpf at diversity university, at 5:08 am EDT on August 6, 2005

Well, I don’t really think that a person who would decline comment on whether the Holocaust happened can be considered an accurate teacher or said to have fair influence on his students.

By the same token, we should probably be dismissing various apologists for Stalin and his ilk in our university system, however. There are communists who are just as extreme in their views, and if we are to be dismissing people on flimsy justification (the missing classes sounds like a cover) for their political leanings or speech, they should qualify as well.

Kevin, at 11:55 am EDT on August 17, 2005

The man’s not a NAZI— He;s just a NEO-CON on steroids

Patrick Tynan, at 12:24 pm EDT on April 4, 2005

Me, I’d wonder why this guy is no longer a tenured professor at his previous institution. Retirement? Something else? Though the whole thing does show how tenure can protect even the most vile perspective and how adjuncting leaves one utterly vulnerable. (I completely support tenure, by the way.)

historyburp, at 1:01 pm EDT on April 4, 2005

When will the academic left cease its unconscionable assault on ideological pluralism? My goodness, will the Vast Leninist Conspiracy stop at nothing?

David Noon, at 5:32 pm EDT on April 4, 2005

When shall you wake up out of your hateful dreams? Yes, professors are mostly liberal, yet is it not true that most americans voted for our conservative president?

Don’t hate just because your losing.

Johnb, at 10:10 pm EDT on April 4, 2005

unamerican

so what if hes a nazi. he’s nonviolent and harms no one and unlike thousands of professors across the country doesn’t throw in his two cents. It is completely unamerican to kick this guy out. but what can you expect from a school like dickinson.

Jim, at 2:26 pm EDT on April 5, 2005

Forget politics, what about history?

I agree that prof’s shouldn’t be targeted because of political leanings, no matter how much you disagree. But if those views cause him to mis-represent history (like the Holocaust), then the issue is his teaching integrity, and on that basis they should investigate and consider dismissal if it cannot be resolved.

Tolana, at 2:26 pm EDT on April 5, 2005

Academic Bill of Rights

Well, if the bogus Academic Bill of Rights passes, then we will have to insist on at least one Nazi in every department. After all, the ABOR says there are too many liberals on campus and we need to have a balance! I doubt this is what they had in mind, but it’s a good idea to point out all the ramification of ABOR.

marty, at 12:14 pm EDT on April 8, 2005

freedom of speech and academic freedom

As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I believe that freedom of speech belongs to all of us, including members of the American Nazi Party. As an academic, I believe that faculty have the right to express unpopular opinions, something that this professor did not seem to do in his courses. Students can choose not to take a class with a professor whose political views they deem reprehensible, but it is reprehensible for an administration to dismiss a professor because of his political views.

Betsy, at 8:38 pm EDT on April 8, 2005

Shocked = Fairness

That everyone is shocked to discover that the professor is a Nazi, indicates that he was probably fair in the classroom. Can many liberal professors, or feminist professors, believe that their students would be “shocked” if their views became known through other means? Or are the too busy jamming those liberal and feminist views down the throats of their students?Better to have a diversity of views, Communist, Nazi and what ever, so long as they teach the subject, rather than political corectnest disguised as the subject.

Hugh, independent scholar, at 5:06 am EDT on April 9, 2005