Gadfly Back on Campus
Wendy Rubick
Issue date: 3/9/09 Section: News
After vandalizing two hotel rooms in China as part of a political protest, Professor Edward Romero is back teaching for the spring semester.
Romero said he did not expect to be back in the classroom because he thought his protest would lead to incarceration.
"This is a pleasant surprise," he said. "I love leaching, and I love being back in the classroom, so it's kind of exciting."
Romero vandalized two hotel rooms in Beijing, China during the 2008 Olympics as "Project Gadfly" by his Exodus8one human rights group. An effigy with fake blood was planted in one of the hotel rooms and Romero broadcast footage of himself painting walls with slogans like, "Beijing 2008 Our World Our Nightmare." Then Romero went into hiding for 18 days before surrendering to authorities in Tiananmen Square.
Romero said decades of human rights violations in China as well as the country's inability to meet International Olympics Committee qualifications prompted the project.
While Project Gadfly is over, Exodus8one is working to keep their cause alive, communicating with other human rights groups and creating a documentary and book-"Take the Next Step." Romero said the book details the events which took place between his arrival to and departure from China. The second portion of the book, "Building the case" is an explanation of why "Gadfly" took place, and the final portion of the book includes moral and ethical justifications behind "Gadfly."
Dean of Humanities, Stephen Runnenbohm, said Romero was absent from Mt. SAC during the fall semester because the professor did not return from China in time to teach for the fall semester.
"I feel fine about him being back on campus," Runnenbohm said. "As far as I know, he's an effective professor. The actions he took reflected him as an individual, not a professor."
Joseph Hsiao, 23, business administration major, is a current student of Romero's who said he had mixed feelings about Romero's Beijing activities. "If you do something like this, it will get their (communist party's) attention, but I don't know if it's right."
Matthew Vivanco, 21, political science major, is a philosophy student of Romero's who said he was shocked when he heard of the Gadfly Project.
Vivanco said: "The fact that he was defacing property that wasn't his was surprising for many people, that a man of his stature would go and do something like this when he knows that it's wrong, but in the end he was just trying to help out everyone else."
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