Joel Dorius born 4 January 1919 (d. 2006)Raymond Joel Dorius was an academic and a professor of literature at Yale University, Smith College and San Francisco State University.
He was most notable for having been fired by Smith College after he was arrested for possession of homosexual pornography in 1960. Fellow professors Newton Arvin and Edward Spofford were also dismissed for the same reason - in fact it was Arvin who was initially arrested and who gave up the names of his two colleagues with whom he had been sharing the material when questioned. The three were fined and given suspended prison sentences. In 2002, Smith College acknowledged the wrongful termination of the three professors' contracts by creating a lecture series and a small scholarship, the $100,000 Dorius/Spofford Fund for the Study of Civil Liberties and Freedom of Expression, and the Newton Arvin Prize in American Studies, a $500 annual stipend.
This story was detailed in the 2001 book, The Scarlet Professor, by Barry Werth.
In 2004, Dr. Dorius released his memoir, My Four Lives: An Academic Life Shattered By Scandal.
Dorius was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and died of bone marrow cancer at his home in San Francisco, California.