Brooklyn College officials Monday backed down and rehired a professor fired days ago when a local pol complained the teacher spewed anti-Israel ideology.
“I’m elated,” said Kristofer Petersen-Overton. “This is an incredible victory for academic freedom in the United States and around the world.”
University officials had denied that Petersen-Overton, 26, was axed last Wednesday from a Middle East politics class because of his politics.
They insisted he wasn’t ready to teach the graduate level-course because he’s abeginner in a Ph.D. program at the CUNY Graduate Center.
But on Monday, Brooklyn College President Karen Gould, acknowledging that the earlier firing had provoked a debate about academic freedom, said officials had decided Petersen-Overton was qualified to lead the graduate course.
“He has sufficient depth of knowledge and the intellectual capacity to successfully lead a graduate seminar,” said Gould in a statement. “I reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the principles of academic freedom, faculty governance and standards of excellence,” she added.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) blasted the reversal, saying Petersen-Overton supported Palestinian suicide bombers in his writing and assigned anti-Israel books to students.
“This flip-flopping is pathetic. Only a couple of days ago they said he wasn’t qualified,” said Hikind. “I’m embarrassed to tell anyone I graduated from Brooklyn College.”
