Princeton University’s Board of Trustees voted to fire classics professor Joshua Katz amid a second investigation into a consensual relationship with a student from 15 years ago, according to The New York Times. Katz has condemned the university for claiming to be systemically racist.
Princeton said in a statement Monday that Katz “failed to be straightforward” during a 2018 investigation into his relationship with an undergraduate student, according to The New York Times. The Board of Trustees reportedly voted to fire him following a “detailed written complaint” in 2021 “from an alumna who had a consensual relationship with Dr. Katz while she was an undergraduate.”
Katz told the National Review that he learned of his firing when a New York Times reporter called his wife. The university reportedly sent his termination papers to the wrong email address.
Princeton fired Joshua Katz this evening—and announced it publicly before informing him of the final decision. https://t.co/id36EKYrIa
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 23, 2022
Katz was the subject of two investigations over the past two years, according to The Washington Free Beacon’s initial report that the university planned to fire Katz. The professor underwent a year of unpaid leave amid a 2018 investigation into a consensual relationship with an undergraduate student. He underwent a second investigation into the same relationship following a 2020 Quillette op-ed condemning the university’s woke position on racism.
The Ivy League professor’s op-ed denounced Princeton’s approach to anti-racism and condemned academics for hijacking the principle of free speech. (RELATED: Yale Law Students Call For ‘Unrelenting Daily Confrontation’ Against Conservative Peers Following SCOTUS Leak)
“In recent years … people inside the academy have … persuaded a considerable segment of the populace that words are violence and need to be policed,” Katz said. “Even more frightening is that these ideas have been coupled with violent actions and calls for defunding the actual, non-metaphorical police … Free speech is a bedrock principle. If we cannot agree on this, then we are lost as a nation.”
Katz reportedly offered to resign from Princeton weeks ago, the professor’s lawyer, Samantha Harris, told the National Review.
“I think that it speaks to the climate of pressure in these politically charged situations, that they felt that they absolutely couldn’t forgo the ability to say, ‘We were going to fire him,’” Harris said.
Princeton University did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.