Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a name known among scholars, among activists, among sociologists and among the people of Philadelphia. A brilliant, incisive thinker and teacher, Dr. Monteiro is a scholar’s scholar. He holds a PhD in sociology and an honorary doctorate from Lincoln University; his work perhaps the most cited in his department, the Department of African American Studies, Temple University. He is well known for his expertise in the life and scholarship of perhaps the finest black scholar of the 19th and 20th centuries, W. E. B. Du Bois. By any measure, Dr. Monteiro himself is a fine and admirable scholar. So, why is he facing a date when he will be dismissed from Temple? Good question. Dr. Monteiro himself doesn’t know other than what he read in the newspaper. Seriously.
Reading a local paper he learned that the school Dean, Dr. Teresa Soufas, terminated his contract because she wanted the department to go another way. Dr. Monteiro doesn’t buy it. He thinks, with some substance, that he’s been targeted for daring to demand that the dean appoint an African scholar to lead the department, which resulted in protests leading to the seating of Dr. Molefi Kete Asante as chair. Dr. Asante founded the department years ago.
Dr. Monteiro’s supporters, who are many, are demanding his reinstatement and grant of tenure. He has served as associate professor in that department since 2003, when he was invited to join. He is a hard working man who teaches in an interdisciplinary fashion. His classes are popular, and students routinely give high evaluations. He’s loved by many of his students, and he teaches with reason, passion, and accuracy. He is principled and dedicated to North Philadelphia, where he has spent most of his life.
Join the struggle to reinstate Dr. Anthony Monteiro by writing Philadelphia Activist Initiative, Post Office Box 34249, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19101. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
