Activist health sciences instructor fired from DePaul after offering optional 'genocide in Gaza' assignment

An adjunct faculty member at DePaul University — a private, Catholic institution in Chicago — has been fired after she offered students an optional assignment regarding the war in Gaza.

Last spring, Anne d’Aquino taught a 100-level health sciences course at DePaul that focuses on pathogens, the spread of infectious disease among human populations, and the means of combating them.

'My termination was ... another example of this administration's efforts to twist any discussions of Palestine and Palestinian liberation language into false claims of antisemitism.'

On May 7, the tail end of the semester, d'Aquino sent her students an email offering them an optional assignment about the "genocide in Gaza" following the Israeli bombing in Rafah. In the assignment, students were to explain "the impact of genocide/ethnic cleansing on the health/biology of the people it impacts." She also invited students to comment on "resisting the normalization of ethnic cleansing."

The following day, d'Aquino received an email from Health Sciences chair Sarah Connolly, informing her that she had been terminated from her position as an adjunct instructor effective immediately. Connolly then took over the course for the remainder of the semester.

As an adjunct instructor, d'Aquino was entitled to due process only after she was terminated. So, she filed an appeal a week later, arguing that the Gaza assignment was not off-topic since the course was established as a result of COVID-19 and the attending so-called public health crisis.

"The assignment was, in fact, related to the course and its objectives," she claimed. "For months, scientists and physicians have been warning about the spread of infectious disease in Gaza due to starvation, malnutrition, overcrowding, destruction of critical water and sanitation infrastructure, lack of access to sanitation items, and health care collapse."

On Thursday, d'Aquino also organized a small rally to support her appeal. "My termination was a breach of my academic freedom," she said, "and another example of this administration's efforts to twist any discussions of Palestine and Palestinian liberation language into false claims of antisemitism."

About 50 attendees waved pro-Palestinian signs as she spoke and then paraded about with a 24-page petition containing about 1,500 signatures of students demanding her reinstatement. They then delivered the petition to Connolly's office, but Connolly was not there.

The following day, DePaul issued a statement regarding d'Aquino's dismissal: "We investigated the matter, spoke with the faculty member, and found [the assignment] had negatively affected the learning environment by introducing extraneous political material that was outside the scope of the academic subject as outlined in the curriculum."

The school also claimed that some students "expressed significant concern" that such a politically charged assignment had been injected into a health sciences course about microorganisms. The school did acknowledge that the appeals process is "currently underway" in d'Aquino's case and that it "will be completed soon."

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