No, Muhlenberg College Did Not Fire a Professor Simply for Pro-Palestinian Speech

My new essay just posted at The Hill, explaining that Prof. Maura Finkelstein’s advocacy of shaming and excluding “Zionists” from her “space” was professional misconduct for a college professor. (Dismissal still seems overly harsh, unless there is more to the story than we know so far.)

Here is the gist: 

Zionists are students too: University professors should take heed

by Steven Lubet

Muhlenberg College Professor Maura Finkelstein drew national attention when she claimed to have been fired from her tenured position for “pro-Palestinian speech.” 

[I]t is seriously misleading to assert that she was dismissed for pro-Palestinian speech.  

Finkelstein’s words . . . show that she actually engaged in professional misconduct involving profound disregard for the educational rights of many Muhlenberg students.  

“Do not cower to Zionists. . . . Shame them. Do not welcome them in your spaces. Do not make them feel comfortable. Why should those genocide-loving fascists be treated any different than any other flat-out racist. Don’t normalize Zionism. Don’t normalize Zionists taking up space.”

Coming from a professor of cultural anthropology, even as a repost, it urges the belittlement and exclusion of most of her Jewish students, a significant majority of whom would be described as Zionists according to recent surveys.  

“Judaism is a religion,” she said, but “Zionism is a political ideology,” which is not a legally “protected class.”  

Political ideology discrimination may not violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, but it is nonetheless misconduct for a college professor.

Under the American Association of University Professors widely followed Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, “a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position.” 

Is a professor fit to teach undergraduates, some of whom are “Zionists,” if she has inveighed against “normalizing” their presence in her space, which presumably would include her classroom? 

You can read the entire piece at The Hill.