Hofstra professor Richard Himelfarb made the kind of comment professors make every day: He criticized another professor’s course proposals at a faculty meeting. He never expected to be penalized for doing his job - or for working with FIRE to defend himself.
Himelfarb believed the Jewish Studies courses a colleague proposed contained too little Jewish content. He described parts of his colleague’s proposals as “word salad.”
Himelfarb was shocked to learn that the other professor filed a discriminatory harassment complaint against him for the remark - and that Hofstra University was investigating it.
Professors cannot do their jobs if ordinary curricular disagreements become harassment cases. So Himelfarb sought FIRE’s help, and we wrote to Hofstra explaining that its own academic freedom promises protect his speech.
But instead of backing away from its mistake, Hofstra made things worse. It added a retaliation charge against Himelfarb for publicly defending himself by working with FIRE. Hofstra’s message was clear: suffer our abuses in secret, or you’ll suffer even more.
Tell Hofstra to drop the charges against Professor Richard Himelfarb and affirm that Hofstra faculty will not be punished for exercising or exposing attacks on academic freedom.
