The teaching contract of a 25-year University of New Mexico instructor, who supports the secession of Southwest states to form an independent Chicano nation, is not being renewed despite protests from students who fear the university is stifling academic freedom.

Dr. Charles Truxillo, a longtime Chicano nationalist, contends his firing was due to his radical beliefs.

“I know that it is my beliefs because they cannot come up with any other reason. The administration said that they were looking for full-time tenure-track faculty. I qualify … Why isn’t a position being offered to me?” asks Truxillo, a founding member of the university’s Chicano Studies department.

Truxillo, considered an American traitor to some, supports the succession of American states bordering Mexico for a separate Chicano nation. He argues that the Articles of Confederation give individual states full sovereignty and thus the states bordering Mexico have a legal right to secede.

“Universities, now, are afraid of the government,” says Truxillo, who has been an adjunct faculty member in the Chicano studies department for 10 years. Before that, he worked for 15 years in the history department.

Truxillo, who doesn’t have tenure, appealed to Provost Viola Florez. She upheld the decision, noting that the heads of the department and college decided not to renew his contract because they want to stabilize and build the program by hiring tenure-track faculty.

Truxillo concedes that his ideas are too radical for tenure. “Tenure is based on a vote from my colleagues. Few are in favor of a Chicano professor advocating a Chicano nation state,” Truxillo says.

UNM spokeswoman Carolyn Gonzales said the university couldn’t comment on Truxillo’s status because it’s a personnel matter.

Two days after Truxillo was fired, Chad Wilson, a junior anthropology major at the University of New Mexico, assembled a group of 20 students to campaign for Truxillo’s reinstatement.