Hunter College, a top public university in New York City, said on Wednesday that it had placed on leave a professor who came under fire in recent days for “abhorrent remarks” made at a public meeting.
The announcement by the school’s president, Nancy Cantor, came amid mounting pressure from elected officials and families to remove Allyson Friedman, a tenured associate professor in the college’s Department of Biological Sciences.
Dr. Cantor said in a message to the campus that Dr. Friedman would remain on leave until the college completes an investigation into whether the professor’s conduct violated school policies.
The backlash has centered on Dr. Friedman’s comments at a Feb. 10 Community Education Council meeting on Manhattan’s West Side at which families expressed concern about a controversial plan from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to close or relocate several schools that the city Department of Education operates.
As one Black student made a plea to save her school from closure during the meeting, Dr. Friedman — a public school parent who attended virtually — was caught speaking on a hot mic.
“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” Dr. Friedman said. “Apparently Martin Luther King said it. If you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore.”
She appeared to be referencing comments made earlier in the meeting by the leader of the local school district, Reginald Higgins. He had mentioned Carter G. Woodson, the scholar known as the father of Black history, who said, “If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told.”
Dr. Friedman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In a statement earlier in the week, she had said that she had been “trying to explain the concept of systemic racism” to her child, who was in the room with her, “by referencing an example of an obviously racist trope.”
But she said that only part of the conversation was audible because of the microphone mistake.
“My complete comments make clear these abhorrent views are not my own, nor were they directed at any student or group,” Dr. Friedman said. “I fully support these courageous students in their efforts to stop school closures.”
Outrage exploded after a recording of the meeting was posted online late last week. The chair of the City Council’s committee on higher education, Rita Joseph, called for Dr. Friedman to lose her job. A coalition of parent leaders organized a news conference on Tuesday to describe the episode as a painful illustration of the school system’s failures to protect Black families.
In her message to the Hunter College campus, Dr. Cantor lamented that “this painful incident unfolded at a meeting where Black History Month was being celebrated and the pernicious and enduring effects of anti-Black systemic racism were being discussed.”
Still, at least one prominent organization has pushed back on the college’s response. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a well-known free-speech group, said before the Wednesday announcement that it was alarmed that Hunter College would even launch an investigation.
Hunter is part of the City University of New York and is not under the control of the Department of Education, which runs K-12 public schools.
“Discussions of systemic racism fall squarely within the First Amendment rights this public college is legally required to uphold,” Zach Greenberg, the organization’s faculty legal defense counsel, said in a statement. “Faculty have the right to discuss political issues off hours, especially those related to their children’s schooling and local communities.”
Others saw it differently. Mr. Mamdani said on Tuesday that his administration had reached out to the leadership of City University of New York and would work to “ensure accountability.”
“The racist outburst at the recent meeting completely disregarded basic decency and caused deep harm in the school community,” Mr. Mamdani said in a statement. “This is unacceptable.”
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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