Adjunct professor fired by DePaul after optional assignment about Gaza
By Sabrina Franza, Samah Assad, Mikayla Price
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — An adjunct professor was fired from her role at DePaul University, after offering an optional assignment to her students in which she asked them to explore the biological and health impacts Israel’s war in Gaza has on Palestinians.
Dr. Anne D’Aquino taught Health 194, Human Pathogens and Defense, across from the now torn-down pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the quad.
“Students were distracted,” D’Aquino said. “A lot of them were volunteering at the encampment. A lot of them had friends that were at the encampment.” It was a topic that was overall unavoidable, she said.
Biochemist and professor Dr. D’Aquino was hired on April 1 to teach Health 194. She said she felt this course, in particular, would allow her to discuss the intersections of humanities and biology.
According to the syllabus, the course in part explores microbiology research and its relevance to everyday life, current events, as well as microbiology knowledge to “big picture impacts on individuals and communities.”
“Taking real-world examples and applying our biology to it, and then communicating that to the general public—since many of the students will be doing that in their profession,” D’Aquino said.
D’Aquino said she was terminated for asking students to do just that—offering an optional alternative to the previously-assigned topic of avian flu, and instead focusing on the effects of the war in Gaza.
“The day that I added the optional assignment, there was a large attack on Rafah, and I didn’t want that to be left unacknowledged,” she said. The optional assignment asked for scientific analysis and critical thinking to understand “the impacts of genocide on human biology.”
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