Princeton Fires Tenured Professor in Campus Controversy

A Princeton classics professor was fired, “efficient instantly,” on Monday after the college’s administration discovered that he had not been absolutely sincere and cooperative with an investigation into his sexual relationship with an undergraduate pupil about 15 years in the past.

The dismissal of the professor, Joshua Katz, was a uncommon case of a tenured professor being dismissed, and got here after a fierce debate on campus and in wider political spheres over whether or not Dr. Katz was being focused for an article in a web based journal that criticized anti-racist proposals by school, college students and workers.

The board voted to dismiss him based mostly on a “detailed written grievance from an alumna who had a consensual relationship with Dr. Katz whereas she was an undergraduate beneath his educational supervision,” in response to a press release from the college issued Monday afternoon. That relationship was in 2006-07, however the alumna didn’t file her grievance till 2021.

When advised that Princeton had introduced his firing, Dr. Katz’s spouse, Solveig Gold stated, “That’s information to me. We now have nothing.” She added, “It’s fairly damning that we don’t have it ourselves.”

Dr. Katz declined to remark instantly. However final week, Dr. Katz’s lawyer, Samantha Harris, stated, “In our view, that is the end result of the witch hunt that started days after Professor Katz revealed an article in Quillette that led folks to name for his termination.”

The college’s assertion didn’t even allude to the free speech subject — Dr. Katz’s denunciation of a school letter urging Princeton to take steps in opposition to institutional racism. The explanations the college gave for dismissing him have been confined to his conduct surrounding the connection with the coed.

It stated a 2021 investigation had “established a number of cases during which Dr. Katz misrepresented information or did not be easy” throughout an earlier Princeton investigation in 2018 into the connection with the undergraduate.

One such occasion, the assertion stated, was “a profitable effort to discourage the alumna from collaborating and cooperating after she expressed the intent to take action.” The investigation additionally discovered that “Dr. Katz uncovered the alumna to hurt whereas she was an undergraduate by discouraging her from looking for psychological well being care though he knew her to be in misery, all in an effort to hide a relationship he knew was prohibited by college guidelines,” in response to the assertion.

These actions, the assertion stated, have been “not solely egregious violations of college coverage, but in addition solely inconsistent together with his obligations as a member of the college.”

Dr. Katz and his allies identified that he had already been punished as soon as for the connection, and contended that it was being resurrected as a pretext to retaliate in opposition to him for an article he revealed in Quillette, a web based journal. The article criticized anti-racist proposals set ahead in a July 2020 letter signed by greater than 300 Princeton school, college students and workers.

In probably the most broadly quoted and reviled factor of his article, he referred to as a pupil group, the Black Justice League, a “small native terrorist group” that had made the lives of many college students, together with Black college students, depressing.

The firing was anticipated after Princeton’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, beneficial his termination in a Could 10 letter to the chair of the board of trustees.

Princeton rejected the concept Dr. Katz was focused for his political opinions. In a November 2021 report laying out the proof for Dr. Katz’s dismissal — which Dr. Eisgruber relied on for his suggestion — the college dean, Gene A. Jarrett, stated, “the present political local weather of the college, whether or not perceived or actual, isn’t germane to the case, nor does it play a job in my suggestion.”

Dr. Katz, who was employed by Princeton in 1998 and obtained tenure in 2006, had a sexual relationship with an undergraduate from June 2006 by means of her commencement in 2007, in response to Dr. Jarrett’s report.

Princeton realized of the connection years later by means of an nameless tip and investigated in 2018. Dr. Katz confessed to a consensual relationship and was quietly suspended for a 12 months with out pay.

Dr. Jarrett’s report stated Dr. Katz was suspended for violating the college’s “Consensual Relations With College students” coverage because it stood in 2006 and 2007. As well as, “his failure to reveal to college officers an ongoing private and romantic relationship with a pupil he was grading and supervising” was discovered to violate the college’s nepotism coverage, the report stated.

When the highlight was on Dr. Katz for his denunciation of the college anti-racist proposals in 2020, the coed newspaper, The Day by day Princetonian, started an investigation of sexual harassment allegations in opposition to him. In February 2021, the paper revealed an extended article exposing his relationship with the undergraduate.

After that article, the previous pupil, who had not cooperated with investigators in 2018, whereas she was a regulation pupil, filed a 63-page grievance to the college in opposition to Dr. Katz, and Princeton opened a brand new investigation. The scholar was not named in The Princetonian’s article and couldn’t be reached for remark.

Princeton apparently anticipated that the investigation might be seen as a type of double jeopardy, and was cautious to say that it was not reinvestigating the sexual relationship, however quite was trying into new points, in response to Dr. Jarrett’s report.

“His choice to place his personal pursuits above his obligation, as a member of the college, to guard his pupil” was sufficient by itself to justify dismissing Dr. Katz, the report stated.

In Could, Dr. Eisgruber accepted Dr. Jarrett’s suggestion and submitted it to the trustees.