On Wednesday afternoon (12/8), I was informed by Jack Knott, Dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School, that his office’s “review” of my “conduct,” carried out at the insistence of my department colleagues last October, finds that my teaching has not violated any of NYU’s policies, and, therefore, that the university will take no further action in my “case” (as there isn’t one).
This is, of course, good news; so it may be churlish of me to observe that, since they came to that conclusion in the spring, they might have let me know before this week.
In any case, this decision is a great relief, for two reasons.
First, I no longer have to worry that I might be harried any further by the university (over this matter, anyway); and, second, through this formal exculpation, NYU has, tacitly, disavowed my colleagues’ slanderous petition to the dean back in October, 2020, demanding that he order that “review”—because, they argued, my “conduct” in the classroom had violated NYU policy. It was so egregious, they asserted, that it ought to nullify my academic freedom, so that I might be duly punished (i.e., fired): for my routine “hate speech,” “attacks on students and others in our community,” “aggressions and microaggressions,” and other crimes that I have not committed, ever, at NYU or anywhere else.
It is because of those wild lies, and my colleagues’ refusal to retract them (or even to reply to me about them), that I am suing them for libel. While we await the judge to rule on their motion to dismiss (filed back in February), I am encouraged that the university appears not to support their drive against me; and I continue to look forward to my vindication, as a victory for academic freedom and free speech.
MCM