Nancy Rabinowitz, in a telephone call to Hamilton College President Joan Hinde Stewart Thursday night (Feb. 10), announced her resignation as director of the Kirkland Project.
The action, which takes effect immediately, comes in the wake of controversy surrounding a speaking invitation extended by the Kirkland Project to University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill and the project's offer of a temporary teaching position to former prisoner Susan Rosenberg.
In a paper written immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Churchill suggested that many of those killed that day deserved their fate. He subsequently reaffirmed those remarks. Rosenberg was indicted but never tried for a 1981 armored car robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead. She was sentenced for 58 years on charges of weapons possession, but President Clinton granted her clemency in 2001. Rosenberg was invited by the Kirkland Project to teach a half-credit course on memoir writing but withdrew following criticism of her past.
In a statement posted to the Kirkland Project's Web site, Rabinowitz said, "Hamilton College finds itself in the midst of a crisis that is deeply rooted in the institution's history and set against a backdrop of increasing political and cultural tension. Much of the resulting media attack has been directed personally at me as director of the Kirkland Project. This, in turn, has been destructive to the project and to the educational mission of the college, in particular to its desire to create a more diverse and welcoming environment for all students. In the interests of the college and its community, therefore, I am stepping down as director, effective immediately."
Rabinowitz continued, "I am resigning under duress, for I would have preferred to stay on until I took my long-awaited sabbatical; however, my strengths have been in the intrinsic work of the project itself, and what the project needs now is someone more adept at the kind of political and media fight that the current climate requires. Therefore, it is in the interests of the mission of the project itself and for no other reason that I am yielding to requests that I resign."
Stewart announced that the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, working with the Kirkland Project's Coordinating Council and Executive Committee, will assume oversight of the organization for the remainder of the semester.
She reported earlier that the project would undergo a review. In a Feb. 7 letter to the Hamilton community Stewart wrote "… I have initiated a review of the organization's mission, governance, budget and programming, and have informed the project's leaders that allocations from their budget for the remainder of the year require the signature of the dean."
The review, which is being led by Associate Dean of the Faculty Kirk Pillow and includes four other Hamilton faculty members, will be completed by the end of the academic year in May.
According to the College Catalogue, "The Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture is a campus organization committed to intellectual inquiry and social justice, focusing on issues of race, class, gender and sexuality, and other facets of human diversity. Through educational programs, research and community outreach, the project seeks to build a community respectful of difference."
Rabinowitz, who teaches comparative literature at Hamilton, has been the project's only director since the organization was founded in 1996.
