A tenured law professor at Columbia University who advocated for pro-Palestinian students on campus says she was in effect forced out of the university, citing a “toxic and hostile environment for legitimate debate around the war in Israel and Palestine”.
Katherine Franke announced on Friday that she had reached an agreement with Columbia University that relieved her of her “obligations to teach or participate in faculty governance” after serving on the Columbia law faculty for 25 years.
“While the university may call this change in my status ‘retirement’, it should be more accurately understood as a termination dressed up in more palatable terms,” she said.
A spokesperson for Columbia University said in a statement to the Guardian that Columbia was “committed to being a community that is welcoming to all and our policies prohibit discrimination and harassment”.
