Joel Dorius

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Raymond Joel Dorius (January 4, 1919 - February 14, 2006) was an academic and a professor of literature at Yale University, Smith College , San Francisco State University and University in Hamburg, Germany.

Dorius was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He studied at the University of Utah and Harvard University. 1949 he got a job as professor at the Yale University and 1958 he changed as professor to the Smith College. He was most notable for having been fired by Smith College after he was arrested for possession of homosexual pornography in 1960. Fellow professors Newton Arvin and Edward Spofford were also fired for the same reason. Doris left after the scandal America and worked as professor at the german University in Hamburg. 1964 he came back to America and got a job as professor at the San Francisco State University.

In 2002, Smith College acknowledged the wrongful termination of the three professors' contracts by creating a lecture series and a small scholarship, the $100,000 Dorius/Spofford Fund for the Study of Civil Liberties and Freedom of Expression, and the Newton Arvin Prize in American Studies, a $500 annual stipend.

This story was detailed in the 2001 book, The Scarlet Professor, by Barry Werth.

In 2004, Dr. Dorius released his memoir, My Four Lives: An Academic Life Shattered By Scandal.

Doris died of bone marrow cancer at his home in San Francisco, California.

[edit] Works

Shakespeare's "King Henry IV, Part 1": A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall 1971, ISBN 0133870359
Discussions of Shakespeare's Histories, DC Heath 1964, ISBN 0669220043