Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton, the Brooklyn College teacher removed from his class scheduled to start next week because of objections to his criticism of Israel, announced in an email that he will be hired back by Brooklyn College.
Petersen-Overton was dismissed from teaching the class after a student who had looked at the syllabus complained to state legislator Dov Hikind, who wrote to the university calling Petersen-Overton an "overt supporter of terrorism" and demanding his dismissal. Brooklyn College had tried to disguise the political firing by claiming Petersen-Overton was not qualified to teach a class for master's students because he does not have a Ph.D. But Ph.D.s are not required to teach in academia, not even in graduate-level courses. His alleged qualifications only became an issue once there was criticism about the ideology of the teacher. And plenty of other teachers of master's courses at Brooklyn College, past and present, do not have Ph.D.s.
There's no doubt about this being an academic freedom issue when pressure from a politician was paramount in this case.
The case revealed some of the defenders and opponents of academic freedom. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter written by Adam Kissel to Brooklyn College, expressing concern and asking administrators to explain what happened. By contrast, KC Johnson, writing for Minding the Campus, did not utter a word of criticism for the firing of this professor. Instead, Johnson denounced as "groupthink" the decision to hire him in the first place.
It's good to see Brooklyn College coming to its senses and protecting the academic freedom of its teachers to teach and its students to learn. But it still must reveal exactly how the decision to fire this instructor was made, and how political intimidation affected the case.
Parts of this crossposted at CollegeFreedom.