CAMPUS

BC Professor to be Censored

Anna Djintcharadze, a doctoral student and teacher in the philosophy department at Boston College, may have her published work permanently revised without her permission in order to make it more politically correct.

Djintcharadze, who recently penned two articles for the controversial Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, could have her work amended by Blackwell Publishing even though both her and the editor-in-chief of the encyclopedia steafastly stand behind the accuracy of her articles. Accusations by some that the encyclopedia is “too Christian” sparked an immediate response from the publisher. The printing of the encyclopedia has been stopped indefinitely and the volumes in shipment have been recalled. Contributers to the encyclopedia have been asked to return their complimentary copies and the publisher has destroyed all copies of the publication in its possession.

This case is sure to be bound in the court system for some time but I believe that the issue at stake here is that of intellectual property. The editor-in-chief of the publication, George Kurian, went to the publisher with the idea of putting this publication together, completed it a full year ahead of schedule, and convinced his writers to fill four volumnes of text instead of the standard three at no extra cost to the publisher. Simply put, this idea, and the work behind it, belongs to the man who conceived and carried out the project, not the publisher. I understand that the publisher has a duty to produce a product that makes a significant profit, but this duty must be balanced with the right of those working on the project to sign their names only to work they approve of.

The complete article on this subject will hit news stands at Boston College around noon today and I will try to get the article posted on CAMPUS in the near future.