Feuer-Katz Row Over Plato Splits Phil Department

Vassar College was rent by a philosophical feud in January when a clash over Plato led to a violent departmental row and the sudden dismissal of four of the seven philosophy instructors "for the harmony of the department."

Dissension over the planning of the curriculum had kept the department in a state of tension for several meetings, as one party pressed for greater emphasis on Platonism and related philosophies.

Immediately after the last meeting in January, associate professor Lewis S. Feuer allegedly struck Platonist Joseph Katz, an assistant professor, during a heated extension of the argument which had raged throughout the meeting.

The department met again and split as expected, with professor Vernon Venable, the chairman, and associate professor Morris Weitz lining up with Katz, Feuer's partisans were the three instructors, Mary Mothersill, Paul J. Spielberg, and Jerome Richfield.

President Sarah Gibson Blanding called a hasty meeting of her Advisory Committee two days later and attempted to smooth over the rift. Meanwhile Katz, with the chairman and one of the two associate professors on his side, was pressing for a decision.

Finally President Blanding moved, ordering the dismissal of the four, and later allowing them to resign voluntarily. Feuer, who received his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1935, and Richfield did not return for the spring term, but Miss Mothersill and Spielberg remained to finish the academic year.

Venable Demoted

Venable, however, was replaced as acting chairman by Sydner H. Walker, assistant to the president.

Neither President Blanding nor any of her four advisors would issue any statement regarding the action, and the incident was not reported at the time in any publication.

The advisors were Dean Marion Tait, Mildred L. Campbell, senior professor of history, Helen D. Lockwood, senior professor and chairman of the department of English, and Mabel Newcomer, senior professor of Economics and chairman of the department of Economics, Sociology, and Anthropology.

Katz Takes Over

Katz took over Feuer's Philosophy 252b, "The Philosophy of Society," and Miss Mothersill assumed full responsibility for 111b, "Nineteenth Century Philosophy."

An eighth member of the department, instructor Maria Stavrides, is on a year's leave of absence