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Jeffrey cleared 0995
WASHINGTON (AP) — The college professor who was fired as House
historian by Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday a leading Jewish
organization has cleared her of the anti-Semitic allegations that
led to her dismissal.
Christina F. Jeffrey, an assistant professor at Kennesaw State
College in Marietta, Ga., was fired soon after she was hired in
January because of a controversy over her 1986 review of a junior
high school Holocaust course, “Facing History and Ourselves.”
Working as a consultant for the Education Department, Jeffrey
had criticized the course curriculum for not presenting “the Nazi
point of view.” When her comments were disclosed, Gingrich quickly
fired her.
In an effort to clear her name, Jeffrey said she met in July
with Abraham H. Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League of
B’nai B’rith, and asked him to review the controversy.
Foxman had said immediately after her firing that her criticism
of the Holocaust course was “misguided and profoundly offensive.”
But in an Aug. 22 letter to Jeffrey, Foxman said that after
examining the facts and controversy surrounding her critique of the
course, “ADL is satisfied that any characterization of you as
anti-Semitic or sympathetic to Nazism is entirely unfounded and
unfair.”
“Your clear repudiation of any form of Holocaust denial and
your advocacy of Holocaust education demonstrate that the `Facing
History’ incident reflected neither an inclination to deny the
reality of Nazi persecution of Jews nor anti-Semitism, but was
simply a regrettable mistake,” Foxman wrote.
Jeffrey said the ADL letter should put to rest once and for all
the allegations of racism and anti-Semitism, which she said had
caused her more pain than if she had been “shot in a drive-by
shooting.”
“I don’t want that in my obit,” she said. “And I don’t want
that on my epitaph.”
Jeffrey said she has told Gingrich repeatedly in the months
since her firing that she deserves an official apology from the
House. But so far, she said, he has not responded.
“He’s not real comfortable with the topic and would rather talk
about anything else,” she said.
Gingrich spokesman Tony Blankley did not return a telephone call
Thursday seeking comment on Jeffrey’s request or the ADL letter
declaring the anti-Semitism allegations unfounded.
