Professional-Palestine Columbia professor departs after investigation

A longtime tenured Columbia College regulation professor who confronted public criticism from Columbia’s president and congressional Republicans will now not educate on the establishment, after greater than 25 years as a college member there.

Katherine Franke mentioned Friday in a letter that she’s successfully been terminated, following a college investigation right into a media interview she gave through which she criticized college students who previously served within the Israel Protection Forces for allegedly harming different college students at Columbia. The investigation discovered that her media feedback, and her alleged retaliation towards a complainant in subsequent feedback, had violated Columbia’s Division of Equal Alternative and Affirmative Motion Insurance policies and Procedures. 

She’s amongst a number of U.S. college members who’ve been investigated or punished in connection to speech that may broadly be thought-about pro-Palestinian.

In a press release, Franke mentioned she reached an settlement with Columbia “that relieves me of my obligations to show or take part in college governance after serving on the Columbia regulation college for 25 years.” She added, “Whereas the college might name this modification in my standing ‘retirement,’ it ought to be extra precisely understood as a termination dressed up in additional palatable phrases.”

She didn’t share a replica of the departure settlement, nor did the college. Columbia didn’t immediately reply to her characterization of her departure.

In a broadcast final January on Democracy Now!, a left-leaning radio and tv newscast, Franke talked about an incident on campus through which pro-Palestinian protesters mentioned they’d been sprayed with a dangerous chemical. College students had been hospitalized, and protest organizers accused different college students who had served within the Israeli army. The college mentioned in August that the substance sprayed was “a non-toxic, authorized, novelty merchandise.”

Franke advised the host that Columbia has a program that connects it with “older college students from different international locations, together with Israel. And it’s one thing that many people had been involved about, as a result of so a lot of these Israeli college students, who then come to the Columbia campus, are coming proper out of their army service. And so they’ve been identified to harass Palestinian and different college students on our campus. And it’s one thing the college has not taken severely up to now.”

Most Jewish residents of Israel should serve within the army for no less than 32 months for males and 24 for ladies.

“We all know who they had been,” Franke mentioned on this system of the alleged attackers at Columbia. (Franke wrote in her assertion Friday that, “I’ve lengthy had a priority that the transition from the mindset required of a soldier to that of a pupil might be a tough one for some folks, and that the college wanted to do extra to guard the protection of all members of our group.”)

Franke’s Democracy Now! feedback grew to become the topic of a college investigation in addition to a broader congressional listening to associated to campus antisemitism. Consultant Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, requested then–Columbia president Minouche Shafik what disciplinary motion had been taken towards Franke. She characterised Franke as saying, “Israeli college students who’ve served within the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] are harmful and shouldn’t be on campus.”

Shafik didn’t reply Stefanik straightforwardly, however replied, “I agree with you that these feedback are utterly unacceptable and discriminatory.” Later in the course of the televised listening to, Shafik confirmed that Franke was beneath investigation.

That investigation discovered that along with the interview feedback, Franke violated campus coverage by retaliating towards the complainants.

A November 2024 Columbia EOAA Investigation Willpower letter to one of many complainants, which was supplied to Inside Larger Ed, says, “You additionally alleged retaliation on three separate events in the course of the course of this investigation when complainant: (i) supplied your identify to a reporter who publicized your identification as a person who initiated the criticism; (ii) reposted a tweet referring to you as a ‘genocide advocate’ and ‘McCarthyite bigot’; and (iii) posted a hyperlink to a doc on social media indicating that you simply had made extra complaints towards respondent.” (Franke had named the complainants—two of her college colleagues—to Inside Larger Ed for a July story.)

The letter says the college concluded that the interview and the primary two retaliation allegations violated the coverage.

In her assertion Friday, Franke mentioned she did enchantment. However “upon reflection, it grew to become clear to me that Columbia had develop into such a hostile setting that I might now not function an lively member of the school.”

Over the past 12 months, folks have posed as college students to secretly videotape her, and clips have ended up on “right-wing social media websites,” she mentioned. College students have enrolled in her lessons to impress discussions they’ll report and complain about, she mentioned, including that regulation college colleagues have additionally secretly taped her and yelled “at me in entrance of scholars that I’m a Hamas supporter.”

“After President Shafik defamed me in Congress, I acquired a number of dying threats at my residence,” Franke mentioned. “I often obtain emails that specific the hope that I’m raped, murdered and in any other case assaulted on account of my help of Palestinian rights.”

Columbia Regulation dean Daniel Abebe advised colleagues Thursday that Franke “is accelerating her deliberate retirement and now will retire from Columbia on Friday.” Abebe praised her work.

However Franke contests the phrase “retirement.” In an e mail to Inside Larger Ed on Friday, Franke defined that she signed an settlement with Columbia a 12 months in the past “to retire in just a few years—phased in.” However she mentioned the college “reneged on” offering routine retirement advantages, resembling recommending her for emeritus standing with the college’s Board of Trustees, offering her an workplace for 5 years and nonetheless permitting her to show some lessons.

“Columbia College’s management has demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with the very enemies of our educational mission,” Franke wrote in her assertion. “In a time when assaults on larger schooling are probably the most acute because the McCarthyite assaults of the Nineteen Fifties, the college’s management and trustees have deserted any obligation to guard the college’s most treasured sources: its college, college students and educational mission.”

The college didn’t present an interview Friday. In an emailed assertion, a Columbia spokesperson wrote, “Columbia is dedicated to being a group that’s welcoming to all and our insurance policies prohibit discrimination and harassment.”

“As made public by events on this matter, a criticism was filed alleging discriminatory harassment in violation of our insurance policies,” the assertion continued. “An investigation was performed, and a discovering was issued. As we’ve persistently acknowledged, the college is dedicated to addressing all types of discrimination in step with our insurance policies.”