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New York University is further challenging a professor’s contention that he was encouraged to take time off after a diversity committee criticized his comments on an anonymous Twitter account and in a student newspaper. The university on Friday released a set of emails between the professor and his dean that suggest the professor requested leave and denied an opportunity to return to campus immediately.
Both Michael Rectenwald (right), a clinical assistant professor of liberal studies, and the university have said the paid leave was voluntary, but Rectenwald has said publicly that he was strongly encouraged to temporarily leave campus after it was revealed that he was Deplorable NYU Prof, the alias behind the Twitter account @antipcnyuprof. The account is critical of safe spaces, trigger warnings and NYU’s administration, among other topics.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post published late last week, for example, Rectenwald wrote, “I’ve become a campus pariah to some (and a hero, perhaps, to a few) in my nontenured NYU faculty job, thanks to the humorless, social justice warrior-brand of campus culture run amok and a misunderstanding about a Twitter account. Enmeshed in a conspiracy -- thinly disguised as sympathy -- of my colleagues’ design, I feel I’ve lost my academic freedom and I potentially stand to lose my appointment.”
The emails between Rectenwald and his dean, Fred Schwarzbach, paint a somewhat different picture. Early last week, for example, Schwarzbach wrote, “Contrary to what you have been saying publicly, we don't give leaves based on faculty members’ posts on social media. … If you no longer wish to take leave, please indicate so in writing to me immediately and we will make all the necessary arrangements to allow you to resume your classes and other duties immediately.” Rectenwald responded that he’d “tried to represents the facts of my leave truthfully, while also merely attempting to respond to the committee on diversity, which took such a potshot at me and with such a lack of collegiality. And I wanted to make my position on the whole trigger warning, safe space and bias reporting culture clear.”
Rectenwald declined immediate comment.
