After 18 years teaching at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice in New York, I have been fired. The decision to pull my contract was made unilaterally by school president Karol Mason because of
pressure she felt from
outside of the university. My department chair of Latin American and Latinx studies, my colleagues in the department and I have never seen anything like this and are shocked.
As my coworkers in the Economics Department
point out, this heavy-handed action represents a grave threat to academic freedom and the autonomy of university departments to hire and fire their professors.
I have had the honour of teaching thousands of
students at John Jay College since the spring of 2007. I was fired because of my
outspokenness about the United States and Israel's ongoing genocide of the people of Gaza.
Zionist forces with no relationship to the John Jay College community
doxed me, threatened me and ultimately got me fired.
President Karol Mason: Where is my academic freedom?
President Joe Biden: Where is my right to freedom of speech?
I do not believe in Zionism and genocide which have gone hand in hand for three-quarters of a century. Don't I have a constitutional right to say that on my social media and in my activism, both outside of university activity?