Hunter College professor Allyson Friedman placed on leave for racist hot mic comments

Hunter College placed a professor on leave days after she sparked massive backlash for making “abhorrent” comments about black students on a hot mic during a virtual meeting.The move comes after Allyson Friedman, an associate biology professor at Hunter College, was caught inadvertently interrupting a black eighth-grade student’s concerns about the potential shutdown of her Upper West Side public school during a public Community Education Council meeting on Feb 10.“I write to share an update about actions that Hunter College is taking as a result of the incident during a recent virtual meeting of the New York City School District 3 Community Education Council in which abhorrent remarks were heard coming from a district parent who also is a Hunter employee,” Hunter College President Nancy Cantor wrote in a statement on Wednesday.“As I shared earlier, we are investigating this matter under the university’s applicable conduct and nondiscrimination policies,” Cantor wrote.“Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employee has been placed on leave,” the statement continued.

The CUNY school previously said it was “reviewing” Friedman’s conduct after the tenured professor’s comments quickly circulated online and sparked widespread fury.“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” Friedman was heard saying while her mic was unknowingly unmuted, according to a recording of the meeting posted online, which she had attended as a parent of a public school student.“If you train a black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back,” she said.

“You don’t have to tell them anymore.”She seemed to be referring to a comment made by Reginald Higgins, the school district’s interim acting superintendent, who spoke about scholar Carter G.Woodson, the father of black history, earlier in the meeting.“If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door.

He will go without ...