ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Muhlenberg College’s firing last year of tenured associate professor Maura Finkelstein following an anti-Zionist repost on Instagram violated academic freedom, according to a report the American Association of University Professors released Tuesday.

The AAUP report said Muhlenberg faculty spoke of their concerns that Finkelstein’s firing has caused some instructors to censor curriculum and has affected students’ willingness to openly engage in discussions regarding Israel and Palestine.

“In the view of this committee, con­cerns about antisemitism should never be trivialized or dismissed out of hand, but neither should similar concerns raised by those who support Palestinian lib­eration,” the report states. “We note further that the attacks on Professor Finkelstein, who is Jewish, for her criticism of Israel could also be construed as antisemitic because such attacks suggest that it is not acceptable to be Jewish and pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist, thereby justifying (and in some cases encouraging) vitriol and hostility directed at Jewish persons who hold these views.”

Extra care should be paid to protecting academic freedom as campuses face escalated demands to discipline or investigate faculty and students for their speech and conduct related to the war in Gaza, the AAUP said in a news release.

The AAUP and Muhlenberg College have been at odds in their characterization of the events surrounding Finkelstein’s firing, and the AAUP has argued that the college’s dismissal procedures did not provide enough due process.

In a statement Tuesday, the college said: “This matter has been resolved, and Dr. Finkelstein resigned from the college to pursue other scholarship opportunities. We are reviewing the AAUP’s report. Its draft report contained more than 25 statements that were not accurate, not material, and were taken out of context or contain speculation.”

The statement refers to the college’s online response to the draft report, which it says “establishes a more complete and factual record.” The college’s response can also be found at the bottom of the AAUP report.

Finkelstein was placed on paid administrative leave after she shared a January 2024 Instagram story that reposted the words of Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi.

In May 2024, Finkelstein received notice she had been fired.

“Her dismissal had become effective at the end of May without a hearing, without the adjudication of her case by elected faculty peers, without the opportunity to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and without demonstration of just cause by ‘clear and convincing evidence in the record considered as a whole,’ ” the AAUP report states.

The AAUP advocates for a set of academic freedom principles that include the right of any faculty member facing dismissal to a pretermination hearing before an elected faculty body.

The report acknowledges that Finkelstein received a postdismissal hearing during the appeals process, but argues that she would not have been fired in spring 2024 if she had been allowed a hearing before her dismissal. As evidence for that belief, the report cites the findings of the Faculty Personnel and Policies Committee, which found the administration hadn’t met its burden of proof to fire her for cause and asked for it to be reconsidered, the report said.

By then, Finkelstein had resigned.

In a March 24 reply from Muhlenberg College to the AAUP’s draft report, the college asserts that AAUP dismissal standards are part of its Faculty Handbook procedures and disputes the claim that due process was not followed.

“The cumulative effect of Professor Finkelstein’s conduct and its impact on the Col­lege community, including her post that called for the shaming of members of the Muhlenberg College community, was considered during the Equal Opportunity process by the Equal Opportunity Investigators, the Adjudica­tion Panel, the Provost, and the Independent Appeals Officer in rendering their findings and recommendations. The same is being considered by the President as her review under the Faculty Handbook process continues,” the college’s response states.

Both the AAUP and Muhlenberg College accounts of the events leading up to Finkelstein’s firing acknowledge that the social media post came after months of controversy that began in October 2023.

Finkelstein reported to the AAUP that she believed tensions dated back to her reply to an Oct. 10, 2023, email that President Kathy Harring sent to the college community calling the Oct. 7 attack “deplorable” and stating in part, “The conflict in the Middle East has played out over millennia, but no matter the history Hamas’ decision to invade a sover­eign nation and murder its citizens was an evil one.”

Finkelstein’s reply stated in part, “There is no doubt that Saturday’s surprise attacks are devastating. We must mourn all civilian deaths. These are terrifying times. But we cannot mourn without also acknowledg­ing the fact that Israel is a settler colonial state, Palestinians have been living under occupation since 1948, and Gaza is an open-air prison, the densest and perhaps most dangerous place in the world.”

After an interview with the student newspaper and further social media posts continued to spark complaints, Finkelstein became the subject of a Change.org petition calling for her firing and an online pressure campaign in which thousands of emails that appeared to be bot-generated were sent to school administrators, local politicians and media outlets, including The Morning Call.

Finkelstein has maintained an active presence on social media. Her posts on X from Tuesday include an invitation to a May 6 Scholars for Social Justice webinar in which she will speak on the topic of “Activism & Academic Freedom in a Time of Genocide.”

A pinned post from April 3 reads, “What is academic freedom in the midst of a genocide? What is the use of our training & our resources if we cannot use our position as intellectuals to condemn the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and call for Palestinian liberation?”

_____

©2025 The Morning Call. Visit mcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.