Elders Facing Fight Over University Job Her Return To Arkansas Medical School Is Challenged

Joycelyn Elders, forced out as surgeon general by President Clinton almost a month ago, is now facing a fight over plans to return to her old job as a professor at the University of Arkansas Medical School.

Members of the budget committee of the General Assembly here on Thursday mounted a challenge to her plans, which have drawn fire from conservative and Christian groups. The medical school’s budget was ultimately approved, but only after its chancellor was grilled about Elders, a tenured professor of pediatrics.

“She’s a very effective teacher,” responded Dr. Harry Ward, chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

“I disagree,” said state Rep. Ted Mullenix of Pearcy. “I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the state that she return and teach those policies.”

“Those policies” include Elders’ advocacy of sex education in the earliest grades and easy availability of contraceptives, and especially her pronouncement that masturbation might be taught to youngsters as a means of avoiding the spread of the AIDS virus the latter remark having caused President Clinton to dismiss her last month.

“Those of us who advocate these kinds of policies not be taught in the classroom are called right-wing religious radicals or whatever,” Mullenix said. “But I think that is out of step with what the people of Arkansas want in the classroom.”

Elders responded Thursday afternoon at a news conference in Little Rock after the budget committee meeting by reminding reporters that those in her classrooms were “third- and fourth-year medical students - fairly sophisticated people.”

But she also resolved to remain in her position, despite what are expected to be continued efforts by conservative legislators to oust her.

“I think that if I’m just dismissed because there are some dissatisfied legislators out there, of course I’d have to get a lawyer - not fighting for Joycelyn Elders, but for the freedom of university professors,” she said.

Elders, in her first meeting with reporters since returning to Little Rock from Washington, declined to criticize Clinton for her dismissal, saying, “If he felt it was in the best interest of the country that I no longer be the surgeon general, that was the decision the president had to make.”

But she warned that public health and politics were now at odds.

“We have politicized public health rather than try to deal with the issues that will improve the health of the public,” Elders said.

“You can either decide ‘I’m going to be a surgeon general in name and talk about the soft, warm fuzzies,’ or try to make a difference, to improve the health of America.”