BY JOHN K. WILSON
On May 23, the Princeton Board of Trustees voted to fire tenured professor Joshua Katz on the recommendation of a dean and the president, and with the approval of a faculty committee.
Katz’s defenders claim that he is being persecuted for his extramural utterances calling a black student group a “terrorist organization.” The National Review argued that the decision “gives off a revolting odor of using a long-settled matter as a pretext to punish one of its most distinguished professors because he dared to challenge race orthodoxy.” The problem with odors and assumptions is that they don’t provide solid evidence of ill motives.
Last month, I wrote at Academe Blog in defense of Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber and his strong defense of free speech against those who demanded that he censor a campus website that criticized Katz. I noted, “It’s astonishing to me that a tenured professor who is not being punished in any way can receive an outpouring of support from numerous national groups demanding the intervention of top officials in order to banish mere criticism of a professor.” I still stand completely behind the second part of that sentence defending the right to criticize Katz. But the first part has obviously changed. Eisgruber was right not to silence Katz’s critics, but he is wrong to fire Katz.
It is clear that Katz would never have been subjected to a second investigation if not for the outrage over his offensive comments. I’m not alleging that Princeton administrators are punishing Katz because of those comments. But the attention on Katz’s sexual relationship with his student, which led to this second investigation, only resulted from the debate over Katz’s political opinions and excellent journalism by the Daily Princetonian that led to Katz’s former student finally coming forward to reveal what she knew to the administration. While professors should not be immune from punishment for misconduct merely because they are controversial, we should be worried whenever a professor is being fired indirectly as a consequence of extramural statements because it has a chilling effect on free speech. Colleges need to be concerned about this impact, and only punish professors in such circumstances when the evidence of misconduct is overwhelming. That’s not the case here.
Katz and critics of Princeton have claimed that his firing is an example of “double jeopardy,” since he already received a one-year suspension without pay for having an affair with his student. They are wrong. Double jeopardy applies to criminal law, not Princeton’s regulations, and the accusations against Katz are not double jeopardy. It’s like a criminal being found guilty and then facing new process-based charges of lying under oath or lying to the FBI during the investigation. Katz was found guilty by Princeton of new crimes, not old ones.
However, that does not settle the case. Princeton must show that Katz is actually guilty of the new crimes, and that these crimes are so severe that they justify a far more serious penalty than the underlying sexual misconduct. And I don’t think Princeton meets either one of those high standards.
Princeton fired Katz because of two basic charges: Harming a student, and failing to fully cooperate in the 2018 investigation. First, according to Princeton, “Dr. Katz exposed the alumna to harm while she was an undergraduate by discouraging her from seeking mental health care although he knew her to be in distress, all in an effort to conceal a relationship he knew was prohibited by university rules. These actions were not only egregious violations of university policy, but also entirely inconsistent with his obligations as a member of the faculty.”
Certainly, the allegation that Katz discouraged this student from seeking psychiatric care because he wanted to conceal their affair makes Katz look like a sleazebag because he may, in fact, be a sleazebag. But it’s not proof that he’s a sleazebag, and being a sleazebag doesn’t violate any rules at Princeton.
There are many reasons why one may legitimately discourage someone from seeking psychiatric care. You might think they don’t need it, or that it would not help them. You could be worried about someone facing punishment for seeking mental health services. (It was common for Princeton to force out students who attempted suicide.)
There is no professional obligation to recommend psychiatric care to anyone. Urging, or discouraging, mental health care is completely an individual choice and Princeton cannot compel extramural utterances of this kind upon its professors. Bad advice can harm people. But we don’t punish professors for their personal advice. Advice is a form of free speech, clearly protected under Princeton’s free speech principles.
The second accusation against Katz is also dubious: “The 2021 investigation established multiple instances in which Dr. Katz misrepresented facts or failed to be straightforward during the 2018 proceeding, including a successful effort to discourage the alumna from participating and cooperating after she expressed the intent to do so.”
Princeton has a rule that states: “Members of the University community are expected to cooperate fully in the disciplinary process, and anyone (whether a party or a witness) who refuses to cooperate may be subject to discipline. Failing to respond to multiple attempts by an administrator to contact or meet with a member of the University community may be considered a refusal to cooperate.”
It is quite clear from this statement that the intent of the “fully cooperate” rule is simply to require responses to an investigation, and to prohibit lying. But a defendant is not required to help reveal all possible evidence of their guilt to avoid a charge of failing to “fully cooperate.” Cooperate does not mean confess. Even if Katz asked someone not to cooperate with the investigation (which he denies), that is different from personally refusing to cooperate.
The Princeton rule (1.1.5 Honesty and Cooperation in University Matters) states, “Deliberate violations of this provision will be considered serious offenses; subsequent violations, or systematic violations in the first instance, will be considered extremely serious.”
Princeton would have to prove that Katz deliberately lied to them, and even then that would not qualify as an “extremely serious” offense. And even an “extremely serious” violation might not justify dismissal. Moreover, none of the information that Katz allegedly concealed has uncovered anything that would justify firing, and a Title IX investigation dismissed the new information from Katz’s student because the relationship was consensual.
There is no evidence that Princeton is persecuting Katz for his political views, and reasonable people can disagree about the severity of Katz’s misconduct. However, it is troubling when a university seeks to punish a professor for their personal advice to a student, and for failing to help them persecute him. Katz should not be regarded as a political martyr or an innocent victim, but we should question Princeton’s decision to fire him.
John K. Wilson was a 2019-20 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and is the author of eight books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies.
Please show us that “It is clear that Katz would never have been subjected to a second investigation if not for the outrage over his offensive comments.” What is the basis for this assertion?
And, how and why you are certain that “the attention on [sic] Katz’s sexual relationship with his student, which led to this second investigation, only resulted from the debate over Katz’s political opinions”
Without compelling evidence, these are statements of personal belief and ideology, not legitimate arguments to fellow scholars.
It’s quite clear, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reported, “Princeton began investigating Katz in February of last year around the timeThe Daily Princetonian published a lengthy story that offered an unflattering portrait of the professor’s behavior.” That story was published Feb. 4, 2021, and the university reports that Katz’s student contacted them in February 2021 which led to the investigation. So that timeline is pretty clear. We don’t know if the story was the result of extensive reporting on Katz or whether someone told them about Katz’s suspension. But in either case, I think the controversy over Katz was likely to be a strong motivating factor for a story about suspension that had been ignored for more than two years. While we don’t know all the facts with absolute certainty, I think it is reasonable to argue that if not for Katz’s controversial remarks, the investigation would not have happened in February 2021.
I’m sorry but what you now write does NOT follow logically or factually. And a report in CHE is hardly reliable evidence even if it provided any support for you. It is hearsay and surmission. There are standards.
John, I just don’t understand why you spend time talking through all the legitimate reasons someone might have for discouraging psychiatric care right after you quote Princeton’s conclusion about Katz’s own reason: “to conceal a relationship he knew was prohibited by university rules.” Of course, somebody with a different reason–perhaps a general distrust of psychiatry–shouldn’t be punished. But that wasn’t the reason found to be Katz’s. And Katz’s reason–concealing his own inappropriate behavior–is clearly grounds for termination.
My point is that colleges don’t punish bad motives, they punish misconduct. Because there are many legitimate reasons for giving this advice, colleges must not punish the giving of personal advice. So the bad motives are not relevant. It’s extremely dangerous to allow colleges to punish extramural utterances–including private conversations–and use bad motives as the excuse.
Of course we punish bad motives! Just look at any school’s harassment policy. Here’s U Chicago’s (https://harassmentpolicy.uchicago.edu/policy-2/) which prohibits, among other things, verbal conduct that “is so severe or pervasive that it has the PURPOSE or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or educational program participation” (emphasis added). The policy doubles down three sentences later when it says that academic freedom protects speech unless it (again among other things) “serves no bona fide academic PURPOSE.”
No, that’s not correct. “Purpose” is not the same as “intent.” We punish harassment regardless of good or ill intent (although motive can affect the kind of punishment of unprotected speech). But we do not punish protected speech that falls outside the scope of misconduct even if there is a mean or hateful or bad intent. So if a professor tweets some racist opinion, they cannot be punished even if we can show they had a racist motive. Bad motives do not allow protected speech to become unprotected.
This is irrelevant. Princeton is “punishing” at long last, “bad actions.” Motives & intents is NOT the issue here.
in addition to the very troubling inferences drawn by Graff & Soucek, which I agree with, this piece entirely omits the role of Princeton’s faculty & other appropriate bodies in reviewing the firing. unless Wilson is privy to non-public information, this event seems to have gone through full due process as required by AAUP. therefore the faculty there think firing Katz is justified by the facts. absent public dissent by them, second-guessing them based on a plausible but also unproven interpretation of some public information is dirty pool, because Wilson is saying by direct implication that the Princeton faculty failed to properly exercise their own commitments to shared governance and academic freedom. Without some number of Princeton faculty or an AAUP investigation coming out and saying the same thing, this is really counter to AAUP principles–suggesting that faculty do not have the right to defend and define shared governance at their own institution.
wilson’s argument about the proximate cause for the firing is also very tendentious. suppose Katz had won some major award, and this had caused the Daily Princetonian and the earlier victim to come forward and demand a re-investigation of the earlier facts, resulting in him being fired. We would not put the award in a causal link, nor suggest that the publicity attendant to it is a bad thing. The only fault here is Katz’s. And my story is just as plausible as Wilson’s if not more so–that the publicity generated by Katz’s speech, and not the speech itself, plays some causal role in his firing. So what. that’s how things come to light. Had Katz not engaged in such obviously rule-violating behavior, Princeton would not have been able to fire him. It’s not some trumped-up implausible story: it’s an obvious, actual, violation of Princeton’s policies, one that was properly vetted by all the appropriate bodies.
it’s also worth noting that if you read the comment threads at the DP, it’s clear that Katz has a pattern of behavior along these lines, and this may well have played a key role in faculty & administrative bodies going along with the decision to fire him.
I do not omit the role of the faculty, in fact I mention it in the very first sentence. Here’s what happened: A dean investigated and issued a report recommending firing. A 9-member faculty committee elected by the faculty reviewed the case and found the dismissal reasonable. (I would prefer that the faculty committee, not the administration, determine guilt and recommend the punishment, but this is pretty good due process.) As sometimes happens, I disagree with the faculty committee and the administration’s judgment. However, I don’t accuse them of any inappropriate actions (as you do by suggesting they made this decision by reading unproven comment threads that were not part of the charges here). I do worry (as I did in the Ward Churchill case) when controversial speech leads to a dismissal for other reasons, because there is a lot of discretion that can be misused to target an offensive figure. Most commentary on this case has simply assumed without evidence that it was political retaliation; I think it’s important to raise questions about the weaknesses in the substantive charges against Katz, even if he received due process. I also worry about the harsh enforcement of “cooperate fully” rules because I think colleges should generally follow Bill of Rights standards where such rules would never be acceptable.
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1. Katz abused his position of authority to have sex with his students, repeatedly. He got away with it for years.
2. He was still probably fired for his political interventions (anti-BLM mob).
3. Yes, it can be totally correct to discourage students from seeking psychiatric counseling provided by the university. I agree. I think if this was used to can him then it was 100% opportunistic.
Conclusion: He deserves to be fired but the people who got him fired are probably even worse people. The administration simply took note of his behaviour and complaints against him and held on to them until it was in their interest to break his tenure and fire him.