What We Are Reading: Academic Freedom and Twitter

By Roger Berkowitz

Adam Steinbaugh reports on the decision by Babson College to fire an adjunct faculty member after complaints were made about social media posts he wrote in response to President Trump’s tweet threatening to bomb Iranian cultural sites. After Asheen Phansey suggested that Iran might offer a list of American cultural institutions to attack, Babson was criticized widely for supporting an anti-American professor who was calling for attacks on American cultural sites. As Steinbaugh writes, 

FIRE has now learned that Babson College falsely implied that local and state law enforcement officials were looking into a professor’s “threatening” Facebook post. The college’s claim that it was “cooperating” with state law enforcement is not borne out by records provided by the Massachusetts State Police — just as the college’s claim that it was “cooperating” with local police was not supported by records of the Wellesley Police Department. 

Babson’s leadership indulged the willful misreading of Phansey’s post, suspending him and, when that failed to stem the criticism, terminating him after a day-long “thorough investigation.” Never mind that the college tells its faculty and students that it is committed to their freedom of expression — which, as we reminded Babson’s leadership in a letter, protects criticism of President Trump that, as here, certainly didn’t amount to a threat or incitement.