Trustees of Rutgers University will tomorrow launch an investigation of charges that Prof. Leinard Bergel, a member of the German department of New Jersey College for Women, the woman’s branch of the university, was discharged from his post because he was opposed to Nazism and his superiors of the department were devoutly Nazi in sympathies.
The American Civil Liberties Union has been invited to participate in the investigation and a representative of that group will be in New Brunswick for the hearing.
Despite the fact that a large number of students have signed petitions attesting to the ability of Dr. Bergel as a teacher, Dr. F. J. Hauptman, head of the department, continues to insist that Prof. Bergel was dropped for reasons of economy and efficiency.
SUPPORTED NAZI CAUSE
The charge has been made that Dr. Hauptman, and his Nazi associates, have distributed anti-Semitic literature to students of the department.
Dr. Hauptman and his associates of the department are all German citizens, it has been ascertained by the Civil Liberties Union. The dismissed professor is married to an American girl who preceded him in the post he has been dismissed from.
The State of New Jersey is especially interested in the case since a law was passed recently by the legislature making it a misdemeanor to spread Nazi propaganda in the State. If the investigation finds Dr. Hauptman guilty of this, he may be brought to a criminal court as the first person tried under the new law.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
