Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Faculty Opposition to Feith Groundless

To the Editor:

I was saddened to learn from Caitlin Moran’s article (“Gallucci Considers Feith for SFS Appointment,” THE HOYA, Jan. 13, 2006, A1) that members of the SFS faculty are “up in arms” at the prospect of Dean Robert L. Gallucci hiring former Bush administration official Douglas Feith as a visiting professor.

I am ashamed to learn that SFS faculty are so sheltered as to panic at the mere prospect of Dean Gallucci’s attempts to increase intellectual diversity at the school. How contemptible and hysterical is this reaction from members of an academy such as this? I may have expected such a reaction in an institutionally biased discipline or department where intellectual diversity has always been a sham at best, but in the School of Foreign Service? I expected far better.

That any professor would fail to be precluded by shame to reveal such a prejudice speaks ill of the amount of intellectual rigor in the present faculty composition. I guess I take some solace in the fact that Dean Gallucci doesn’t appear amenable to being cowed by these childish tantrums. If this is the direction the university takes in general – that the mere mention of hiring conservatives to the faculty sparks panic among professoriate – I for my small part will never give another penny to this place. That is not the Georgetown I know and love.

Sylvester Sviokla (COL ’99)

Jan. 14, 2006

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