Professors in Trouble Over Protests Wonder if Academic Freedom Is Dying

Maura Finkelstein, an anthropology professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, was an avid poster on social media. She called a fund-raiser for the Israeli war effort “students raising money for genocide,” and she frequently ended her posts with the words “Free Palestine.” After complaints, federal civil rights investigators and the college began looking into her online postings and classroom discussions about the war in Gaza. But it was her sharing of an Instagram post by a Palestinian American poet, Remi Kanazi, that got her fired, Dr. Finkelstein said. “Do not cower to Zionists,” the post said. “Don’t normalize Zionists taking up space.”