A professor was sacked from her job just months after quoting the N-word while reading from a book by Mark Twain.
Hannah Berliner Fischthal worked at New York City’s St. John’s University for two decades before getting sacked from her position as an adjunct professor back in April.
According to the reports, Fischthal was fired just months after quoting the N-word while reading aloud an excerpt from Mark Twain’s novel Pudd’nhead Wilson.
Shortly after using the N-word during a remote class, the professor was fired, whereas the school insists that she hasn’t been sacked because of the incident involving the offensive word.
As the New York Post reported, the professor elaborated Twain’s use of the N-word before saying it out loud in front of her students.
“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,” she allegedly said.
Despite the professor’s explanation, however, some students were left upset by the word and at least one of them is said to have left the virtual classroom immediately after hearing it.
“It was unnecessary and very painful to hear,” the student complained after the class.
Following a backlash, the professor allegedly apologized to her students in a private chat. “I apologize if I made anyone uncomfortable in the class by using a slur when quoting from and discussing the text,” she said at the time.
In the following month, Fischthal was suspended after a meeting with HR, prompting the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to write a letter asking the university to reinstate her.
“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 non-profit group wrote.
Following reports that the professor has been fired because of her use of the N-word, the university pushed back by insisting that the incident wasn’t the reason why she got sacked.
“If your assertion is that she was fired for reading aloud from a Mark Twain novel, that is incorrect,” a spokesperson told the Post.
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