Anthro Lecturer, Not Rehired, Claims His Radicalism Prejudiced Department

Shelton H. Davis, lecturer in Social Anthropology, said yesterday that the Anthropology Department did not renew his contract because it disapproves of dissenting approaches to the subject.

Evon Z. Vogt, professor of Social Anthropology and chairman of the Department, called the charge "utter nonsense."

"A one-year appointment is a one-year appointment," he said last night.

Davis said that the decision was part of a trend toward repression of radical viewpoints in the social sciences-evidenced most recently, he said, by the Economics Department's refusal to rehire radical economists Samuel S. Bowles and Arthur MacEwan.

"Anthropology grew out of colonialism, and its ideas have either been Anglo-European ideas about other peoples or have been used to control people." Davis said.

Redefining Anthro

"What I and other anthropology students are trying to do is essentially redefine what anthropology is all about--it's time we tried to understand how people have been affected by big institutions, imperialism, capitalism. American expansion," he said.

"We've been studying that for years," Vogt said. He said Davis was hired "on a temporary basis, to do the American Indian course [Social Sciences 152]," and that if budgetary stringency permits the retention of the course, the Department will look for an American Indian to teach it, or at the very least "someone who's really an expert."

"It would be excellent to have an American Indian teaching the course." Davis said last night. But beware if the Anthropology Department chooses an anthropological 'expert'