But after carefully distancing themselves politically, university administrators concurred with Whitney's claim of academic freedom.

"I find [Whitney’s] opinion obnoxious; I find it entirely wrong," President Sandy D'Alemberte said at the forum. "But, if there's any place in our society that deserves to have robust free speech, it's the university."

Florida State seems to have granted Whitney little more than license; in the faculty lounge of his psychology department, forgiveness is nowhere in sight. According to department chairman Robert Contreras, angry e-mails circulate through the department daily.

For his part, Whitney characterizes the recent flurry of media controversy over his ideas as "little more than hysterical name-calling and hate-mongering." After recent events, he says his working definition of racism is that of "Alien Nation" author Peter Brimelow: "Today a racist is anyone who is winning an argument with a liberal."

"The dust hasn't settled," Contreras said. "There are a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of anger."

For many, the dust isn't even close to settling. Trumped by the academic-freedom card, Whitney's opposition refocused its efforts to oust the professor. Critics -- mainly columnists for several Florida newspapers -- claimed that any professor with views such as Whitney's would surely discriminate against blacks in the classroom. Contreras surveyed the teacher evaluations written by Whitney's students and reluctantly reported otherwise.

"I've never had any complaints about his grading," Contreras said. "But I have been concerned about what students get out of his course."

Others looked to Whitney's funding. In addition to concern over his publicly financed salary, critics were shocked that FSU had channeled an $87,700 grant to Whitney in July from the controversial Pioneer Fund, a conservative foundation known for its racist ties. Between 1971 and 1992, Pioneer gave more than $10 million to behavioral scientists whose research lent support to racist ideas and eugenics organizations. More recently, the fund has helped pass anti-immigrant legislation such as California's Proposition 187. Whitney's grant was designated for the study of "behavior genetics in human affairs."

It isn't surprising that a professor who holds Whitney's views should ignite controversy. What is surprising, when you look deeper, is how Whitney even got anyone to listen. After all, it was more than a year ago that Washington University biology professor Alan R. Templeton argued persuasively that, biologically, race doesn't exist in humans. Templeton's analysis of millions of genetic sequences in human DNA demonstrated that most of our genetic variation occurs on an individual level, rather than between populations. While some genetic differences do exist between human populations, these do not define historical lineages in the way popular conceptions of race suggest.

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