St. John's professor is 'fired after she quoted the N-word while reading from a Mark Twain novel' and students said hearing the slur was 'very painful'
At St. John's University professor lost her job, allegedly after students were upset after she quoted the N-word aloud while reading from a Mark Twain novel to her class.
The school denied that the quote was the reason she was fired from her job, though.
Hannah Berliner Fischthal, an adjunct professor at the school for two decades, was fired from her position on April 29.
She allegedly lost her job after an incident two months earlier during a remote class with her students on February 10.
In Fischthal's 'Literature of Satire' class, she was reading an excerpt from Pudd'nhead Wilson, Twain's anti-slavery novel from 1894.
Hannah Berliner Fischthal, an adjunct professor at the school for two decades, was fired from her position on April 29
She read from a novel named Pudd'nhead Wilson, a Mark Twain novel seen as a send-up of racism and slavery, written in a satirical tone
Twain uses the N-word in the novel, which Fischthal contextualized to her class before saying it, according to the New York Post.
'His use of the 'N-word' is used only in dialogues as it could have actually been spoken in the south before the civil war, when the story takes place,' Fischthal said.
Despite her attempts to contextualize the quote before reading it, at least one student claimed to leave the class after she said the word.
The student wrote in an email at the time, 'It was unnecessary and very painful to hear.'
Fischthal responded by apologizing and starting a private conversation with her students, where she wrote, 'I apologize if I made anyone uncomfortable in the class by using a slur when quoting from and discussing the text.'
Two students defended Fischthal while four rejected her use of the word in class, a discussion that continued during the following class.
Nevertheless, she was called into an HR meeting on March 3 to discuss the incident and response, as well as an alleged comment Fischthal made about the hair of a black student, which she the professor claimed had nothing to do with her hair.
Two days later, Fischthal was suspended, accused of violating the school's bias policy.
Attorneys for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have written the president of the university to have Fischthal reinstated.
'Quoting [Mark Twain’s] work in a class on satire falls squarely within the protection afforded by academic freedom, which gives faculty members the breathing room to determine whether — and how — to discuss material students might find offensive,' the letter read.
The school (pictured) declined to say that the quote she read from a Mark Twain novel in class was the reason she was fired from her job
A spokesman for the school, however, pushed back against the assertion that Fischthal was fired because of the quote.
'If your assertion is that she was fired for reading aloud from a Mark Twain novel, that is incorrect,' Brian Browne, a spokesman for St. John's, told the Post.
Pudd'nhead Wilson is about a light-skinned slave who switches her baby with her master's baby to give her son a life of privilege he otherwise wouldn't receive.
The book is largely about the debate between nature and nurture, as well as a satirical look at racism and slavery.
'The point of this novel was that there is no inherent difference between Blacks and Whites. Clothes and education are what distinguishes people,' Fischthal said.
'Both the boys in the story look exactly the same, even though one is by law a slave, and the other one is a privileged white boy,' she added.
Fischthal had taught as an adjunct professor at the school (pictured) for two decades
Fischthal also referenced another recent incident at St. John's that allegedly resulted in the dismissal of a professor.
Former police officer Richard Taylor, 46, was an adjunct history professor at the college, where he taught a class about the Columbian Exchange, which included the movement of plants, animals, technology, disease and more between the Old World, West Africa, and the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Towards the end of the class on the Columbian Exchange in September, Taylor allegedly asked students to justify slavery, leading to at least one complaint against him.
Taylor disagreed with the characterization that his prompt at the end of the class was racist.
'I was asking them about the overall pros and cons of the Old World and the New World coming together,' Taylor told the NY Post. 'Slavery was a small part of the overall discussion.'
After the complaint, he was taken out of the classroom and later fired from his $15,000 adjunct professor position, which he has held since 2015.
Another recent incident at St. John's that allegedly resulted in the dismissal of a professor has that professor suing the school, claiming he was terminated for an unjust complaint
Taylor and his lawyers say they haven't been presented with evidence to justify his firing, nor have they been able to appeal the dismissal.
He is suing the school, claiming he was terminated for an unjust complaint against him.
Fischthal said she was 'horrified' by that incident. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she also believes she's the last person who should be accused of being racist.
'I know where it leads and I know where it ends,' Fischthal said. 'In every class I teach the evils of stereotyping.'
Fischthal concluded that she'll miss her students and miss teaching.
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