Despite Purdue president Mitch Daniels' denial of claims he wanted college material censored, current professors of the school expressed their distaste for the former governor's now public e-mails, the Associated Press reported.

Ninety Purdue University professors signed an open letter to Daniels stating their dislike for his attempted removal of Howard Zinn's book from Indiana schools. The letter showed more concern over the book issue than the rest of the e-mails he had sent as governor three years ago.

"However much we disagree with your past statements, we are more troubled by the fact that you continue to express these views today, especially since you are now speaking as the chief representative of Purdue University with the responsibility to embody the best of academic inquiry and exchange," the letter read.

The AP originally reported on the e-mails July 17 when the news agency obtained them in a Freedom of Information Act request. The next day, Daniels denied to the AP that he ordered Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" be removed from colleges, but said he intended to have it taken out of public K-12 schools.

Daniels called the original report "unfair and erroneous," but did not answer a request to point out the story's errors.

In his 2010 e-mails, he corresponded with various Indiana education officials on removing "liberal propaganda from the state's schools.

"This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away," Daniels wrote. "The obits and commentaries mentioned his book, 'A People's History of the United States,' is the 'textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.' It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page," Daniels wrote Tony Bennett, then Superintendent of Public Instruction.

When Daniels learned the book was being used in Indiana college courses and grade schools, he said "this crap should not be accepted for any credit by the state."

David Shane, a top fundraiser and state school board member proposed a statewide review of course material to remove Zinn's book and other materials. Daniels told Shane to "go for it."

Kristina Bross, a Purdue English teacher and organizer of the professors' response, said she wished for Daniels to hold an open forum in which he would explain how he came to his conclusions about Zinn and his book.

Daniels responded to the professors' concern in a letter of his own, but he only reiterated what he stated last week.

"Protecting the educational standards of middle schoolers, to me an important duty of any governor, has nothing to do with protecting against encroachments of academic freedom in higher education, a similarly central duty of any university president," Daniels wrote. "I have and will attend to the latter duty with the same resoluteness I tried to bring to the former."

He also wrote in his letter that he had never publically mentioned Zinn or his book, save for a mention in a book Daniels wrote in 2011, "until attacked in the recent AP story."