By now, Noel Ignatiev's letter to the dining services and personal character have become tangled up with firing and with issues of free speech. Indeed, Schrag claims that Ignatiev's original letter is no longer even relevant to the debate.

"Noel is not the issue at all," says Schrag. "Anything he has done in his life, anything he has said, not that he has anything to be ashamed of--that is not the issue. That is just way off base."

The issue, Schrag says, is "the role of a tutor in Dunster House and whether our intellectual community is something a master can single-handedly limit in any way."

Meanwhile, Ignatiev is "enjoying watching the struggle and taking part in it," he says. If he loses the job as Dunster House tutor, he says, he can always spend the extra time on his dissertation.

But he would be sorry to have to do so. "Being a tutor has really been, next to teaching, my best experience," says Ignatiev.

From West Philadelphia to the steel mills, Ignatiev had never experienced the kind of interaction and exchange of ideas that he has in his role as a tutor.

"This has been, really, my college experience...listening to people, interacting with them," he says.