Action on Behalf of Dr. Laurie Rubel at Brooklyn College

/ January 17, 2018

POSTED BY JOERG TIEDE

The AAUP is circulating the following petition on behalf of Laurie Rubel. Please sign and share with colleagues. The attacks directed at Dr. Rubel are an example of disturbing trends we will address during an upcoming week focused on the problem of targeted harassment. 

Together with the Brooklyn College chapter of the Professional Staff Congress, we stand in support of Laurie Rubel, professor of mathematics education, who has become the latest “click bait” for the right-wing media’s outrage machine. Dr. Rubel’s recent article in the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education was caricatured and decontextualized by Campus Reform, an online “watchdog” outlet seeking to curb academic freedom. In turn, Fox News, Breitbart, and others set upon Dr. Rubel’s work with inflammatory mischaracterizations. As a result, Dr. Rubel has received dozens of hostile emails daily, including threats of physical and sexual assault, some referencing her religion and gender.

A robust affirmation of academic freedom is one that circulates to the entire college community, is publicly available, and supports the faculty’s right to publish on controversial matters of public importance. We stand with the PSC in urging the City University leadership to issue such a public statement of support for Dr. Rubel and to establish joint faculty-administration task forces on academic freedom on the campuses. Today’s toxic political and media environment demands a constructive collaboration on this matter of shared concern, at Brooklyn College and across the country.

Add your name! Your name and comments will be shared with the PSC and Dr. Rubel. To read the Brooklyn College chapter of the PSC’s full letter in support of Dr. Rubel, click here.

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