Princeton University’s president recommended recently that the university fire a tenured professor for sexual misconduct allegations. However, those matters were resolved in 2018. It appears the real reason they want to get rid of him is for the crime of questioning the university’s new anti-racism policies.
Here’s the playbook: person expresses thoughtcrime. Both the Puritans as well as bureaucrats dig. Based on the worst mistake or moment, they make a cartoon of the person and then smear them. They pretend it’s about that, but the thoughtcrime was always the thing. https://t.co/rhn3gFgfqR
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) May 20, 2022
Here’s the timeline: in 2006, tenured classics Professor Joshua Katz had an affair with a graduate student. The school investigated and found that Katz had been having an affair with a graduate student in 2006. In 2018, they suspended Katz for one year. This case was closed. The case was closed.
But not so quickly. In 2020, after the death of George Floyd, the school made a series of proposals to address the school’s history of racism. Numerous professors signed a long faculty letter:
…among other radical changes to the campus, a series of perks for professors “of color,” including a summer salary and additional sabbatical time.
Some people get vacations or extra pay, but others don’t. This is based upon race. Hmm, sounds like… well, you know what it sounds like. Katz replied in his letter.
It boggles my mind that anyone would advocate giving people – extraordinarily privileged people already, let me point out: Princeton professors – extra perks for no reason other than their pigmentation.
He also criticized the antics of a student organization, the Black Justice League, which staged a sit-in at the president’s office in 2015 to demand the removal of former President Woodrow Wilson’s name from the public-policy school. He called the group a “small terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands.”
Wilson’s name was erased from the school in June 2020.
Woke students weren’t happy with Katz’s letter. The Woke students wrote a lengthy complaint of 63 pages condemning Katz. They also demanded that the case of sexual misconduct, previously resolved, be reopened. This was quickly accepted by the school. The investigators found new evidence, so the school recommended that Katz be fired.
Katz’s lawyer Samantha Harris thinks the decision is all about speech, and not about the previously adjudicated case:
How many people will be open to speaking out if expressing an opinion that is not popular invites you to turn your life inside out and look for evidence to support it?
Edward Yingling was the co-founder and first president of Princetonians for Free Speech.
Princeton sent a strong message by firing Professor Katz. If a faculty member or student says something that contradicts our orthodoxy, we will get you—if not for what you said, then by twisting your language, by using the extensive resources of the university to shame you before the student body, and by investigating your personal life for years past.
Princeton naturally rejects the claim. According to The New York Times, Gene A. Jarrett was a faculty dean who wrote a May 10th letter.
I have considered Professor Katz’s claim and have determined that the current political climate of the university, whether perceived or real, is not germane to the case, nor does it play a role in my recommendation.
You are correct.
The case has “has deeply divided the campus,” the Times continues, as Katz’s supporters decry the effort to axe him as an assault on free speech, while his opponents say that “incidentally exposed additional troubling behavior” was the cause for the recommendation.
The evidence makes it clear that the university is against him for speaking out. It’s pretty convenient that they were able to dig up an old case against him and suddenly find new evidence. It is imperative that the assault on freedom of speech, particularly on campus, be ended.
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