UI Professor’s Comments Prompt Firing by Conservative Magazine

A professor emeritus of the University of Illinois has been removed as an online contributor by the conservative National Review magazine for comments he made about white nationalism.

Robert Weissberg taught political science on the U of I's Urbana campus from 1975 until 2002, and now lives in New York. He spoke last month at a conference in Tennessee hosted by American Renaissance, a magazine known for white supremacist and anti-immigrant views. Weissberg agrees the conference was controversial, but also argued in his speech that white nationalism is a dead end.

"What I suggested as an alternative, just so you know, was that people who want that kind of existence should move to areas that are largely white," Weissberg said.

A former head of political science at the U of I says Weissberg's 'disappointing' comments are from an embittered man who wasn't engaged in his work, and left the campus on poor terms. Peter Nardulli, who now heads the U of I's Cline Center for Democracy, says Weissberg spent much of his time running a retail store in Champaign. He suggests university trustees strip him of emeritus status, calling it his only claim to credibiilty.

"That would be my basis for dissociate himself from the university," Nardulli said. "I mean, emeritus status does not bring with it anything but a title, but when your title is affiliated with a particular institution, that institution should have something to say about it."

But policies from the U of I Provost's office for granting emeritus status do not include language for removing that title.

Weissberg says the National Review is 'going out of its way to enforce a Stalinist ideology' and notes other publications still publish him on line, including American Thinker and Family Security Matters.