I find it … “interesting” that a Catholic university would be so worried about offending Jews. So St. Thomas’s decision to rescind an invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu seems stupid. The administration’s response to the faculty’s response is even stupider.

Cris Toffolo, an associate professor and former director of the university’s justice and peace studies program, wrote two memos urging university officials to reconsider their position. She said asked whether the university reached its conclusions based on a Web site that she said misquoted Tutu as linking Israel to Hitler.

Toffolo said she received a letter in August removing her as director of the peace studies program for two reasons: She had kept pressing to invite Tutu, and she should not have sent Tutu a letter using her director’s title to tell him what happened.

Smooth. Oh well. St. Thomas’s loss is Metro State’s gain. Bishop TuTu will be speaking there instead.

On a meta-note, I’ll say that I liked Matt Snyders’ City Pages article better than MPR’s. MPR referring to Marv Davidov as a “teacher” at a university (he’s an adjunct professor) was weird. CP also pointed out the existence of UST’s Center for Jewish-Christian Learning, which I thought was important to the context.

The CP article uses stronger language, too. Compare the following to the quote above from MPR.

Incensed at the administration’s decision, Professor Cris Toffolo–chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program at the time–sent Tutu a letter on May 24 informing him of the administration’s decision. She also indicated her disagreement with the move and warned Tutu that he might be in for a smear campaign.

University brass caught wind of the letter, and on August 1, Tom Rochon, executive vice president of academic affairs, sent a letter of his own to Toffolo informing her that St. Thomas administrators had decided to revoke her position as chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program.

Related posts:

1. Letter from a Gay Bethel Student
2. 35W Bridge Lecture Series at the U
3. Who vetted that speech?
4. Racial Wealth Gap talk at Arise! Bookstore
5. Yawn….zzzzzzz