Princeton President Recommends Firing Joshua Katz After Uproar

In July 2020, as social justice protests roiled the nation, Joshua Katz, a Princeton classics professor, wrote in a small influential journal that some college proposals to fight racism at Princeton would foment “civil war on campus,” and denounced a pupil group, the Black Justice League, as “a small local terrorist organization” due to its ways in pushing for institutional modifications.

The remarks in Quillette made him a lightning rod within the campus free speech debate, reviled by some who thought what he mentioned was racist, and lionized by others who defended his proper to say it. And they despatched up a flare that led to scrutiny of different features of his life, together with his conduct with feminine college students.

In the newest fallout from that debate, Princeton’s president has beneficial dismissing Dr. Katz, in accordance with a May 10 letter from the president to the chair of the trustees.

But the professor, who’s tenured, will not be going through dismissal for his speech. His job is at stake for what a college report says was his failure to be completely forthcoming a few sexual relationship with a pupil 15 years in the past that he has already been punished for.

Michael Hotchkiss, a spokesman for Princeton, mentioned the college “generally does not comment on personnel matters.”

Dr. Katz declined an interview. But his lawyer, Samantha Harris, mentioned she was anticipating the trustees to fireplace him. “In our view, this is the culmination of the witch hunt that began days after Professor Katz published an article in Quillette that led people to call for his termination,” Ms. Harris mentioned on Thursday.

Princeton’s college dean, Gene A. Jarrett, rejected that view. In a 10-page report, dated Nov. 30, 2021, the dean detailed causes for dismissing Dr. Katz. Dr. Jarrett addressed what he mentioned was Dr. Katz’s rivalry that there was a “direct line” from the Quillette article to being investigated for misconduct.

“I have considered Professor Katz’s claim and have determined that the current political climate of the university, whether perceived or real, is not germane to the case, nor does it play a role in my recommendation,” Dr. Jarrett wrote. That doc turned the idea for the president’s suggestion.

The case has deeply divided the campus. Many college students have been already livid about his Quillette article. And the potential firing has solely fueled the controversy — with dividing traces between those that see it as thinly disguised retaliation for offensive speech, and people who consider that the furor over his remarks about race by the way uncovered further troubling habits.

Dr. Katz, 52, has additionally change into a trigger célèbre amongst a lot of conservative columnists, a few of whom say that his case represents a troubling escalation within the debate over free speech on campuses, by which expressing an unorthodox opinion will not be a matter of protected speech however a stain on one’s character that justifies excavating previous wrongs to expunge it. An article about Dr. Katz in The American Conservative final year was known as “Persecution & Propaganda at Princeton.”

“Is this the world we want to live in, where you express an opinion that other people don’t like, and suddenly your personal life is turned inside out, looking for evidence to destroy you?” Ms. Harris, his lawyer, mentioned.

The scenario is difficult by the truth that Princeton’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, has cultivated a status as a defender of free speech. The college adopted the “Chicago Principles,” a dedication to free speech — even whether it is offensive — that was formulated on the University of Chicago. He has defended different controversial speech, together with skepticism towards transgender identification by one other professor, Robert P. George, the director of the college’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the chair of African American research and a critic of Dr. Katz’s language, mentioned attributing his troubles to his speech was “a bad faith argument” that was “completely inconsistent” with previous statements by Mr. Eisgruber in help of free speech.

As to the notion that Dr. Katz was being persecuted, “It sounds like someone is positioning himself to play a certain role in the current iteration of the culture wars,” Dr. Glaude mentioned.

The saga started with an open letter to Princeton’s leadership on Independence Day in 2020, when protests over the police killing of George Floyd and calls for for racial justice have been rippling throughout the nation. The first sentence declared: “Anti-Blackness is foundational to America.”

The letter known as on the college to take “immediate concrete and material steps to openly and publicly acknowledge the way that anti-Black racism, and racism of any stripe, continue to thrive on its campus,” and supplied 48 proposals for reform. It was signed by greater than 300 college members.

Prominent signers of the letter included Dr. Glaude; Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a Dominican-born Roman historian, who has written that the sector of classics is inextricably entangled with white supremacy; and Tracy Ok. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, who has since left Princeton.

One of the calls for was that Princeton “acknowledge, credit and incentivize anti-racist student activism,” starting with a “formal public university apology” to members of the Black Justice League, who have been met with institutional resistance after they agitated, a number of years earlier than it occurred, to take away President Woodrow Wilson’s identify from the School of Public and International Affairs.

Four days later, Dr. Katz, who has repeatedly described himself as nonpolitical, published his riposte, “A Declaration of Independence by a Princeton Professor.”

He mentioned that whereas among the letter’s signers may need believed of their declaration, he thought that peer strain performed a much bigger function, and that others had not truly learn it. He was, he wrote, embarrassed for them.

And whereas he agreed with some calls for, like giving summer time move-in allowances to new assistant professors, he wrote that he disagreed with others, like giving a further semester of sabbatical to junior college members of shade.

He additionally described the Black Justice League as “a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many Black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands.” He described the group’s supporters as “baying for blood” throughout a “struggle session” recorded on Instagram Live that he mentioned was “one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed.”

The response to Dr. Katz’s views was swift and powerful. Mr. Eisgruber instructed the campus newspaper that he objected “personally and strongly to his false description” of the coed group as a terrorist group.

Several of Dr. Katz’s colleagues within the classics division, together with the chair, Michael Attyah Flower, and the chair of the Equity and Inclusion Committee, Andrew Feldherr, distanced themselves from him, quickly posting a message on the division’s web site saying that Dr. Katz’s language was “abhorrent at this moment of national reckoning.”

A college spokesman mentioned on the time that Princeton can be “looking into the matter,” however no investigation materialized. Dr. Katz celebrated in July 2020 with a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “I Survived Cancellation at Princeton.”

But with consideration targeted on Dr. Katz, the coed newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, started an investigation of sexual harassment accusations towards him. It culminated in a prolonged report in February 2021 about his sexual relationship with the undergraduate.

Princeton already knew about her. The college had began an investigation after it discovered of the connection in late 2017, and Dr. Katz confessed to a consensual affair. He was quietly suspended with out pay for a year.

The Princetonian also reported that Dr. Katz had made not less than two different girls uncomfortable by taking them out to costly dinners — and in a single case by commenting on the lady’s look and giving her presents. All three girls have been recognized by pseudonyms and couldn’t be reached for remark.

Dr. Katz’s lawyer mentioned there was no sample of sexual misconduct. He requested quite a few college students, female and male, to dinner over time, she mentioned — “so many that he has no idea who that even is.”

The girl within the sexual relationship didn’t cooperate with the unique Princeton investigation. But after the Princetonian report, she filed a proper grievance that led the administration to open a brand new investigation, which it mentioned was new points reasonably than revisiting outdated violations, in accordance with the college report.

Princeton asserted that Dr. Katz had discouraged the lady from looking for psychological well being remedy whereas they have been collectively, for worry of revealing their relationship; that he had pressured her to not cooperate with the investigation in 2018; and that he had hindered that investigation by not being completely trustworthy and forthcoming, in accordance with the report.

Dr. Katz’s spouse, Solveig Gold, mentioned he had lost many associates over the controversy. “Nobody wants to be seen in his presence, in his company, in his friendship,” she mentioned.

Ms. Gold, 27, who’s ending her Ph.D. in classics on the University of Cambridge, graduated from Princeton in 2017. She mentioned that she had been his pupil, however that there was no romantic relationship between them on the time. They married in July 2021.

Ms. Gold mentioned her husband had a number of job gives. “The canceled have a way of looking out for each other,” she mentioned. “But none of them is the job that he has loved doing his whole life.”

Some of Dr. Katz’s colleagues are treating his Quillette article as a lesson. It has been included on a college web site, “To Be Known and Heard,” that tackles Princeton and systemic racism. The web site features a historic define of free speech controversies, beginning with minstrelsy and ending with quotes from his article.

The timeline states, “Throughout its history, Princeton has grappled with what crosses the ‘line’ between free speech and freedom of expression, and racist statements and actions.”

Sheelagh McNeill contributed analysis.