Princeton Preparing to Fire Prof Who Called Out School’s Progressive Politics
“Princeton University did not respond to a request for comment.”
We have followed the story of Princeton Professor Joshua Katz. In fact, he was part of a panel we did on cancel culture.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Double Jeopardy: Princeton Prepares To Axe Star Professor Who Raised Hell Over Woke Lunacy
Princeton University is planning to fire one of the most distinguished classics professors in the country, Joshua Katz, after his criticism of the school’s racial politics made him the target of student protests and the subject of two separate university investigations.
University president Christopher Eisgruber—who in 2020 alleged that Katz had failed to exercise his free speech “responsibly”—passed his recommendation that Katz be stripped of tenure and fired to the university’s board of trustees last week, according to three sources with firsthand knowledge of the situation.
It is rare for a university to fire a tenured professor, and even rarer for a university to fire a professor with Katz’s record: By the university’s own admission, he did not commit fraud or sexual misconduct, two of the most common grounds for revoking tenure. Rather, the university is citing as grounds for dismissal a consensual relationship Katz engaged in with a student more than a decade ago, and for which he was already disciplined by the school in 2018.
The board is all but guaranteed to accept Eisgruber’s recommendation when it meets on Wednesday, the sources said. Board members include Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken, who has presided over several high-profile free speech-related scandals on her campus, including the intimidation of a second-year law student by university administrators.
Princeton University did not respond to a request for comment.
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Comments
Sometimes I think folks at institutions of higher ed really enjoy losing lawsuits.
The cover the awards from the student loans bucket, then pass the tab on to the Big Guy.
Princeton, please take out your check book, begin the amount with 10, and then continue writing zeroes until I tell you to stop.
RCP listed an article by Rod Dreher in The American Conservative on this very same subject. His comments section is dominated by anti-Katz posters, including an allierakieron, who insisted on replying to almost every post in the last six hours. The anti-Katz faction is unrelenting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The main criticism involved a affair with a female student years ago. Sounds like piling on to me. although I know nothing about the affair … except 18 year olds re supposed to be adults. Could be we have different definitions of “adulrs”.
The connection between the free speech fight and the reopening of the sexual transgression is too much to be a coincidence. This really looks very bad for Princeton.
What is really strange is how open this is. Usually universities cancel profs in quiet, as described in this important study of the most commonly used techniques, which usually entails an NDA, by the Martin Center: https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/01/the-ways-in-which-colleges-legally-silence-troublesome-scholars/