FIRE Alerts Brandeis Trustees to Hindley Case

FIRE has written Malcolm L. Sherman, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Brandeis University—and the rest of Brandeis's trustees—to alert them to Brandeis's mistreatment of Professor Donald Hindley over his critique of the word "wetback" during one of his classes.

The letter addresses the misrepresentations of the case by Provost Marty Krauss, the sharp rebukes of Brandeis administrators by the school's own faculty, the bad publicity that the case already has generated, and the unbecoming public silence on the matter by President Jehuda Reinharz.

The letter also cites the landmark 2003 letter from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which makes clear that harassment law does not restrict the freedom of speech at universities, despite what overzealous administrators sometimes think.

How soon will Reinharz's phone begin ringing?