Ex-sex professor says GW let him go
because of academic standards of class

…[O]fficials [on] Monday told him he was dismissed because his course wasn't "academically rigorous" enough for University standards.

[The ex-sex professor] said Ruth Katz, dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services, told him school officials decided that Schaffer's syllabus didn't meet the academic threshold for a college class.

Last month Schaffer told The Hatchet he believed he wasn't offered a contract to teach at GW this semester because a female student sharply criticized his class in a spring 2005 course evaluation. She threatened to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against him and called for his termination from the University, Schaffer said.

Schaffer said that there was little discussion about last semester's negative course evaluation in Monday's meeting, and that he believed Katz when she said the academic questions about his course were the reason for his termination.

"There's a philosophical difference between the dean, the department and what I was teaching," he said. "I think they were more concerned about the number of As I was giving rather then the (class's) effect on students."