The dean of the school, however, maintains that Sheldon Epstein, a volunteer adjunct instructor in the electrical engineering and computer science department, simply did not have his one-year contract renewed.
The department is the same one that's home to controversial Prof. Arthur Butz, a well-known figure in the Holocaust denial movement. Epstein says his actions were prompted by Butz's activities.
Over the summer, the Simon Wiesenthal Center publicly complained that Butz's book, "The Hoax of the Twentieth Century," was being sold through the professor's computer web page on the university's Internet server.
"If Mr. Butz wishes to use the Internet to sell his book," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, told NU president Henry Bienen in a letter, "let him do so at his own expense and without the imprint of a respected university on each page of his advertisement."
After examining its policy, the university maintained that the goal of supporting free speech and intellectual freedom outweighed what Bienen acknowledged was a "contemptible insult to all who experienced the horrors of that time."
Bienen told Rabbi Cooper that Butz represents his views as his own and not that of the school.
"If you are suggesting that his expression of personal opinion is cloaked in the mantle of the university, I must respectfully disagree."
A disclaimer on the directory of faculty web pages states that the university is not responsible for their content.
Epstein, the instructor of a senior-level Engineering Design and Entrepreneurship class, said he was unfamiliar with Butz's background until he read of the web page in the Chicago Jewish News's Maven column. He contacted Jerome Cohen, dean of the engineering school, and Bienen to complain about Butz's use of the school's Internet server.
"My feeling was this was a tragedy and a lie, and I didn't think it was responsible for Northwestern University to allow this on the (World Wide W)eb," he said.
In response, Cohen -- who, like Bienen, also is Jewish -- told Epstein the issue was better left ignored, for reasons of academic freedom and because such disputes draw attention to Butz and his views.
Epstein was not deterred.
"It was important to teach my students about the Holocaust because, in part, it was the engineers who built the engines of death. ... The only way politicians can commit genocide is if we engineers give them the weapons of death. The question then becomes, how do you teach engineering students to be ethical and morally responsible."
Epstein told Cohen it was his "moral obligation" to the victims of the Holocaust to teach his students about the German genocide. Students were allowed to choose other examples of state-sponsored genocide.
His view was solidified, he said, after he mentioned the Holocaust in his racially and ethnically mixed class and found that "about one-half ... either had not heard of the Holocaust or lacked reliable information about it."
Using the university's Internet server, he posted an exercise entitled "Candor -- The Language of Engineering." In it, he included a brief personal history, data on the number of people killed during the Nazi Holocaust, the impact the event had on him and his generation, and some of the shortcomings this country has had with race and ethnicity.
His objectives, he said, were to focus attention on the history of genocide and engineers role in it, as well as to "inoculate" students "against contemporary efforts to deny, re-explain, or justify past acts of genocide and ethnic or racial prejudice."
For a class exercise, Epstein asked students to search for web sites that provide Holocaust information, as well as those home to Holocaust denial. In addition, students were to examine the "responsibility of an owner of a server that contains information known to be false."
Epstein continued his efforts, despite being warned that his course would be canceled on the grounds that injecting the Holocaust was not appropriate for an engineering class.
"If you want to fire me," he told the administration, "then do it, because I will not withdraw the 'candor' WWW page."
Not long after that challenge, Epstein was told his appointment would not be renewed, "because continued discussion of the Holocaust violated Dean Cohen's instructions."
"In private industry, that is called being fired," Epstein said.
In a follow-up web posting, Epstein charged "it appears the right of free speech has received a new definition at Northwestern University."
In a letter to Epstein, Cohen said he warned him about discussing the Holocaust in class out of concern it would open the door for Butz to do the same, and because he thought it inappropriate to teach the Holocaust in an engineering class.
"It's a design class, not ethics or morality or philosophy."
All Cohen would say about Epstein's departure is that his "contract ends at the end of this year and is simply not being renewed.
"We don't need to him to teach. We have other people, regular faculty," he said.
Cohen referred further questions about Epstein's teaching status to the university's legal office, though he added that one would "be a fool to write an article about this." A school spokesman said they would not comment on personnel issues.
After learning of his fate, Epstein posted another computer message to students, asking them to examine what had transpired. He said he hoped it would provide them "with the resources and the courage to stand up and do what you believe needs to be done".
"What would you do in similar circumstances?" he asked. "Now that you understand the punishment I received, what price are you willing to pay as a leader?"
LETTERS
The engineer's role
We read the article on Prof. Epstein's non-renewal at Northwestern University's engineering department because he tried to bring moral considerations about the Holocaust into technological studies. Apparently he does not enjoy the same freedom of speech granted to Holocaust-denier, Professor Butz!
In The Face of the Third Reich, Joachim Rest describes and analyzes the characters in Nazi Germany. The very technicians who engineered the Holocaust later excused themselves from any guilt by claiming they were only doing their technological duty in erecting the death camps. This very attitude and indifference to the lethal consequences of technological engineering showed the profound and schizoid immorality of the whole deadly operation.
At Northwestern University, Prof. Epstein was trying to raise the moral consciousness of students and faculty, and had the right and duty to do so without jeapordy to his position.
I trust Epstein's message will be able to cut through academic persiflage and show what is still being done to cover up the Holocaust and legitimate protest!
Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Smith
Chicago