The timing of a decision by the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College to rescind the hiring of a graduate student to teach a course on Middle East politics this spring is prompting questions about political interference in academe, The New York Times reported. The college says it canceled the appointment of Kristofer Petersen-Overton to teach the master’s-level course because he has only a master’s himself. But Mr. Petersen-Overton, who is a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, says the decision came after a prominent politician wrote to leaders of the college and CUNY and criticized his work as slanted against Israel. Mark Ungar, a political-science professor at the college, said 10 professors in the department had signed a statement saying the college’s decision “undermines academic freedom and departmental governance.”
