Recently, I wrote about the bizarre investigation of Hofstra University Professor Richard Himelfarb, who had referred to a colleague’s comments in a faculty meeting as “word salad.” The investigation was launched after a formal complaint from his colleague, Professor Santiago Slabodsky, chair of the Jewish studies program. While some of us called for the “word salad” complaint to be tossed, Slabodsky has now filed another complaint stemming from Himelfarb’s public campaign to clear his name, according to a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
The original Slabodsky complaint alleged that a “small group argued that my two new courses ‘did not have enough Jewish content.’”
During the faculty discussion, Himelfarb made his “word salad” comment, and Slabodsky demanded formal punishment that Himelfarb says could cost him his position.
Even after Himelfarb agreed to apologize after a meeting with the university, Slabodsky refused and demanded a formal punishment.
What began as a silly complaint has become far more serious due to the continued use of the university system to harass Himelfarb. It is a familiar pattern for conservatives who often face complaints and investigations over their viewpoints or teaching.
What is particularly concerning is that the second Slabodsky complaint appears linked to Himelfarb enlisting the help of FIRE, a renowned advocacy group for free speech and academic freedom. FIRE wrote the university:
“On June 30, Vice President for Human Resources Denise Cunningham notified Himelfarb that Professor Santiago Slabodsky had filed another complaint against Himelfarb accusing him of “public retaliation” because Himelfarb contacted an “external organization,” likely FIRE, that disseminated information about the case through several media outlets, “leading to the publication of articles that contain misleading information and half-truths.” The complaint accuses Himelfarb of trying to “intimidate” Slabodsky by generating public pressure on Slabodsky.”
Slabodsky accused Himelfarb of harassment, a highly damaging allegation for any academic. Himelfarb had every right and reason to vigorously defend himself from such a charge in public. To characterize such a defense as “intimidation” and “public retaliation” appears to do precisely what Slabodsky is claiming in the second complaint. FIRE is suggesting that this is a blatant effort to harass or intimidate a colleague. The use of the university system for such a purpose should not be tolerated.
Hofstra has an obligation to act to protect a professor who exercised his right to clear his own name and to enlist the support of an advocacy group. This second complaint should be dismissed with a clear statement that faculty, such as Professor Himelfarb, are entitled to defend their conduct when accused of academic misconduct publicly.
Why on earth would anyone continue to spend bongo bucks to attend universities that are rampant with such narcissistic, neurotic, imbeciles as Himelfarb, in what would appear to be an increasingly futile attempt to obtain credentials that will lead to a prestigious, well-compensated career? It would seem to be far easier to just burn that money in a backyard incinerator, with very similar results.
We get yet more absurd stories about higher education being taken over by leftists and purging conservatives.
Today we get a twofer, but it looks like Turley may have finally beaten this poor broken down horse to death.
Not very many comments today.
Even the tired old geriatric regulars here can’t be bothered to trot out all their usual tired old identical comments on command.
This nonsense is getting very old, and even the regulars can’t be bothered with it any more.
Well said and spot on. We would of beat it some more, but need a day off.
Finally, what may be an indisputable benefit of academia: a place that keeps these morons out of the private sector.
Might I suggest that Hofstra University have its athletic director set up a boxing ring and have these two, garbed in protective head gear, gloves, shoes and shorts, engaged in a refereed three round bout open to the university students and faculty. All with the understanding that after the bout, all honor on both sides will be satisfied and that this nonsense will be dropped.
If they even go just on round, they will be utterly exhausted.
Guessing we need a term for the Male version of a Karen, specifically for the far left Academic type.
Consider Ken or Kevin.
No, I think in this case Karen is appropriate. He doesn’t sound like much a man.
I would like very much to see a transcript. I suspect the word salad description would be correct.
Either way, the complainant is a weak, weepy, shirtstain.
Not a word about the reflecting pool charges being dropped? Why not
Was the reflecting pool at Hoffstra?
No word about the Reflecting Pool charges being dropped here for obvious MAGA reasons.
However it looks like Jeanine “Boxwine” Pirro’s days are numbered.
Trump is having a major hissy fit on Truth Social about her dropping the vandalism charges.
Major hissy fits from ANON daily!!
Hey dustoff, still sucking coc…
Make some popcorn and watch the left eat their own.
Go grill some liberals you nazi.
Who are the people that hire these people to teach our children?
Stephen B. Benisch, Esq.,
Children.
spoiled brat toddlers better represent these ego-driven fanatics.
So sez the blog nazi.
Stupid F.
YES ANON SURELY IS!!!
Damn good, valid point, thanks
Sort of like when George W. Bush blacklisted and defamed 40,000 Americans with no connection to terrorism and destroyed their lives for 25 years. Here just some winey college professors.
Defamation has been legal since Bush’s “War on a Tactic”, where he had a 99% failure rate punishing the wrong people. Turley no longer talks about that.
You mean like a basket of deplorables defamed or
Do you mean like a bunch of ignorant people clinging to their guns and Bibles slandered or Do you mean like Charlie Kirk slaughtered?
Ah the lovely recurrence of the Soviet Style Star Chamber Show Trials!!! None of this would be happening if the GUTLESS ACADEMIC ILLUMINATI FILTH that administer that Institution of Higher Troglodyte Learning had the Huevos to say ‘sit down and shut up’ you moron SLOBODOSKY [sic] – Bah haha!!! But instead the flowery empaths in charge have decided keep the low brow argument going! Great fodder for the student newspaper as those are probably the only idiots interested.
WTF! Take your meds, wait till they kick and try again.
Looks like ANON needs meds!!
This is far beyond reconciliation folks. There’s only one way to settle this:
UFC Cage fight with choice of weapon.
No rules, no yammakas!
Slide rules
Brief cases
Retractable erasers
Choose your weapon, billed as clash of the Nerds!
More stupid …
More stupid from MORON ANON!
Fyou dustoff
I’m not Dustoff you F..G ANON MORON!!! ….yourself!!!
ANON claimed everyone was Estovir now Dustoff– WHAT A PSYCHO ANON!!
Still looking for that ladder heh?
Reminds me of the saying “Those who can, do, those who can’t teach”
Maybe it’s just me, but I had to read this twice to figure out who said what, who complained about whom, and why. The names didn’t help. By the end I still didn’t know who argued the curriculum lacked Jewish content and who fired back with “word salad.”
Then it hit me. The original disagreement isn’t even the story anymore. The process became the story.
What if universities flipped the order? Put both professors in an auditorium instead of an HR office. Let each one explain their position, take questions, and defend their argument in front of colleagues and students. Model how adults actually work through disagreement.
If someone’s being threatened, stalked, or genuinely harassed, fine, use the formal process, that’s what it’s for. But calling someone’s argument “word salad” shouldn’t turn into an HR case.
The founding generation built a republic on the assumption citizens could disagree, defend their own views, and answer criticism with more argument, not administrative intervention. Do we still have that in us? Or have we formed people who reach for an authority the moment disagreement shows up?
And your point?
MORON ANON!
Come Dustoff, take your dress off. Show the people what a sniveling rat you are.
Dustoff?? What a MORON ANON!! ANON feels the need to post drivel 50 times per day! Looks like YOU are the sniveling rat! ANON sounds like an 8 year old!
It isn’t this, it’s that. It isn’t reason, it’s ego. It isn’t scholarly debate, it’s an incessant lament in a whiny, singsong voice. It isn’t normal and productive adult behavior, it’s an obvious symptom of childish petulance and intransigence.
We have the manifestations of subscribers to and supporters of the Woke Volksinitiativ’s DEI philosophy overseen by its Cancel Culture Gestapo alive and well in an environment inhabited by individuals who would fail if they were obliged to challenge the real world in order to survive. They haven’t seen the outside of a classroom since pre-K.
Wanna try that again, this time making an argument.
Wanna get a life ANON??
“Put both professors in an auditorium . . .”
Please, no.
If reading that brief version made you dizzy, one of those colloquia will make you want to poke your eyes out.
There is no end of academic flatulence. I have sympathy for professors who have to waste their time sitting on a panel to adjudicate these charges. I have been also charged by another academic. It causes a big annoyance, and it stops academic production. And in the academic world, charges can take years to resolve.
You too. Then do tell. You brought it up. Or are you lying as usual?
MORE PSYCHOTIC REPLIES FROM ANON DAILY!!
All depends on who’s most sacred in the Progressive Stack. Any other facts of the case are irrelevant.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/youngest-black-professor-ever-appointed-to-cambridge-university-accused-of-plagiarising-work/ar-AA28Fi5A
People are being defenestrated for even referring to this story, no matter how obliquely.
And which “people” are they?
The adults in the room should be the faculty of the universities. Such apparently it’s not the case. Continues to give meaning, for some, the well worn phrase:” those who can’t do teach.“ Even sadder still, those who can’t teach, teach our children. This useless fool should be given his walking papers, his pension, a rocking chair, and a bib to drool on.
Question, are or were you an academic? Didn’t think so. For some reason you feel the need to attack academics, why is that? And I take it you’re the sole adult in the room?
Thought wrong, Across some 40 years and In more that one academic setting, for that matter. Faculty members far more mature than you or that fool presently under discussion.
You stuttering again? You made no point but to show how whinny and childish you are. And you’re an adult?
CRY MORE PSYCHOTIC ANON!! ANON IS 8 years old!!
Cry? Look at your comment. Anon is living in your head.
More than one academic setting? You mean, you were fired often for incompetence?
He’s like a two year old having a temper tantrum. “His majesty the baby.”
No one is less tolerant than far-left academics.
You got proof of that? Please, lay it out for all to see.
You got proof of that? Please, lay it out for all to see. Let’s video the next one seen by one of us. Perhaps it might be having a shit fit over his/her pablum. Have it sent it to you directly. Do provide a forwarding address, email, snail mail or otherwise.
Sounds like you just puked on your keyboard.
Professor John Nowak, my Constitutional Law professor at the University of Illinois, when discussing an intra-university squabble “The fight is so big because the stakes are so small.”