Instructor says he lost job due to his beliefs

by Jeremy Hunt

Daily Lobo

Instructor Charles Truxillo said the Chicano Studies program won't renew his contract in the spring because of his ideological beliefs.

Truxillo said he is well-known nationally as a Chicano nationalist and has been featured in books by Pat Buchanan.

"I'm supposed to be one of the most dangerous professors in the United States," he said. "This is egregious, what's happening. It has to do with ideas."

Truxillo teaches Chicano history courses. He said he got a letter from the program in September informing him his contract wouldn't be renewed.

"After 25 years of working at UNM, you'd think it'd be a done deal," he said. "I was the founding faculty member offering courses in Chicano Studies."

The chairman of Chicano Studies said the decision to not rehire Truxillo has nothing to do with his

ideology.

"These are tough issues," Enrique Lamadrid said. "Every year, there's someone who doesn't get rehired, and it's just part of surviving at a university."

Truxillo said he may consider taking legal action against the University if he can't keep his position.

This isn't the first time Truxillo was told his contract wouldn't be renewed.

He received a letter in May informing him the program did not have funding to contract him for this semester.

Truxillo said he put pressure on the administration after receiving the letter, and Peter White, dean of University College, got funding for this semester.

Truxillo said he has liver cancer, and if his contract is not renewed, he'll lose his medical insurance.

"I just hope I don't find myself unemployed and out of insurance in the spring," he said.

Lamadrid said the program doesn't have funding to pay Truxillo's salary next semester.

Truxillo said his salary, $24,000 per semester, was allocated for the spring by the Center for Regional Studies.

Lamadrid said Truxillo can teach in another department, but Chicano Studies will not rehire him.

Tobias Duran, director of the Center for Regional Studies, did not return calls Monday.

Truxillo said that even with the funding, he has nowhere else to go.

"No other department wants to take me. I'm in Chicano Studies. That's what my background is," he said. "There's no other department that wants a historian of Latin American history."

Truxillo said he appealed to UNM's administration, but it hasn't done

any good.

Interim Provost Viola Florez said there was no guarantee Truxillo's contract would be renewed.

"He is a part-time faculty," she said. "They are not really on contract."

Florez said the dean of University College and Lamadrid decided not to rehire Truxillo because they wanted to hire a full-time instructor.

"Those decisions were made by them in the nature of how they want to institutionalize and grow the program," she said. "He was notified a year ago that his contract would not be renewed as far as teaching in that program."

Lamadrid said he wants the program's history courses cross-listed, but the history department doesn't accept Truxillo's courses.

"If he teaches a history class here, then a student cannot take it in a history major," he said. "That's one of our goals, to get our history classes cross-listed."

White said Truxillo's ideology did not influence the decision to not renew his contract.

"It's a personnel issue," he said. "There's nothing about his political views that's involved."

Lamadrid said it's not an issue of academic freedom because the program has instructors who teach Chicano nationalism.

Truxillo said no one understands Chicano nationalism like he does.

"They don't have anyone like me," he said. "Nationalism is something that comes from someone like me who grew up formed by the Chicano movement."

Florez said the program needed to consolidate its funding so it could expand.

"The decision was made to grow the program and employ tenure-track faculty," she said.

Truxillo said that since the Center for Regional Studies offered to pay his salary, there should be no problem.

He said Chicano Studies doesn't have a good reason for not renewing his contract.

"Shouldn't they have told me these are some of the problems?" he said. "It's just so unethical to come up with a whole bag of excuses for why they're terminating me."

Student Chad Wilson and about 15 other students are trying to keep Truxillo teaching Chicano Studies.

Wilson said the University has no excuse for not renewing Truxillo's contract.

"They've given us no legitimate reason, which leads us to believe they're just trying to get rid of political opposition or any kind of opposition," he said. "He's more sincere in portraying things as they actually are."

If Truxillo does not return next semester, Chicano Studies will become homogenized, Wilson said.

"Chicano Studies will reflect a growing trend in the University that professors won't be able to present alternative viewpoints," he said.

Lamadrid said he admires students who stand up for their teacher, but the University has to put academics first.

"If those were the rules by which universities operated, it would have nothing to do with discipline," he said. "A university is more than popularity contest."