Meanwhile, we can only imagine what would happen if Princeton applied the current Katz standard to the past behavior of all its faculty. ), For a few months, Knouse broke off communication with him. He lost a prestigious outside appointment. I thank God that he is not around to see what has become of the academy. This is serious. A veteran of three decades of magazine and newspaper journalism, hehas also written three New York Times bestsellersLive Not By Lies, The Benedict Option, andThe Little Way of Ruthie Lemingas well asCrunchy ConsandHow Dante Can Save Your Life. Princeton was all too happy to comply. Her grandmother died, and he told her he was sorry for her loss, and they went back and forth about her traveling to Pennsylvania for the funeral. And then there was Joshuas best friend at Princeton, a professor who had been running around our yard with her dog mere days before. Princeton Professor Joshua Katz's spouse Solveig Gold wrote a substack about her experience with her husband's firing. In an indication of what a fishbowl academia is, Dr. Padilla and Ms. Gold both asked Dr. Katz to read their dueling letters, and he made suggestions, Ms. Gold says. Things were fizzling. Solveig's husband Joshua is a linguist and classicist from the United States who is the Cotsen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University until May 2022. Soon, the biotech startups hed helped found Navitor Pharmaceuticals, KSQ and Raze Therapeuticsstarted severing their relationships with him. One of the reasons I strongly support Hungarian PM Viktor Orban is that he is not intimidated by any of it, and he understands the need to use what power he has as the countrys political leader to defy this insanity, and to prevent it from taking root in his country. The canceled have a way of looking out for each other, she said. I decided to apply for early admission to Princeton after sitting in on Professor Joshua Katzs seminar in April of 2012. Students and alumni petitioned the university to discipline him. But Joshua Katz is exactly the man I knew I married. Dr. Katz declined an interview. Joshua, for his part, never pretended to be perfect. In the midst of it all, I sent Joshua an old article: Cambridge Classics Professor Mary Beard on the subject of the erotics of pedagogy. Your data show that diversity training is linked both to being in favor of cancel culture and also having a greater fear of being subjected to cancel culture. In the end, Princeton found him guilty, even as they were busily defaming him as a racist to the entire freshman class. Let me tell you about our relationship. Its about what he represents: empathy, excellence, erudition and a deep commitment to the essential, universal truths to be found in studying classics and, more broadly, Western civilization. A big hug, he texted her, and a safe travels!. The gift of the warning that the immigrants from the Communist world are giving us is not one we should take lightly. Along the way, wed joke about our professors. It was signed by more than 300 faculty, students and staff members. I watched the man I love become a shell of his former self, as he realized that many of his closest friends were not friends at all. Princeton and Harvard will be partially or fully virtual this fall. Prof. Katzs wife said: Ms. Gold said her husband had several job offers. Katz wrote a response to the anti-racism proposals in Quillette, and said that while he supported some ideas, the others "would lead to civil war on campus and erode even further public confidence in how elite institutions of higher education operate.". Knouse was an incoming cancer researcher at the Whitehead, where she would also head her own lab; hers focused on liver regeneration. When Ms. Gold was named a winner of the Pyne prize, one of Princetons highest undergraduate honors for which Dr. Katz (they were not in a relationship at the time) was one of her nominators, the official announcement said she aspired to become a public intellectual. Im not Lady Macbeth in this story, but I am obviously implicated in some way in getting him involved, she said. Gold noted in her essay that Katz had told her about a relationship he had with a student. (He was.) May 26, 2022 . Awards and grants were pulled. The personal and professional martyrdom of these high-profile academics is a sign of things to come, Totalitarian LGBT lobby persecutes kindly vicar who preached tolerance for dissent -- and Archbishop of Canterbury says nothing, Scottish National Party figure was a near-cinch to be its next leader. Her yard is a sweeping field of emerald green grass leading down to the 18th-century blacksmiths cottage with stone floors that houses her home study. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, within days of Joshuas Quillette article, the Daily Princetonian began digging into his personal life and discovered the consensual relationship from the mid-2000s for which he had previously been punished. Early on in our courtship in 2018, he confided in me about the worst mistake of his life: a consensual relationship with a Princeton undergraduate in the mid-2000s. Maybe it will be again. "Early on in our courtship in 2018, he confided in me about the worst mistake of his life: a consensual relationship with a Princeton undergraduate in the mid-2000s. Classics, the very field that gave him everything, he now seeks to destroy along with all those who helped him on the way. That trainee called the reports depiction of the lab an alternate reality, and the characterization of Sabatini as lascivious and retaliatory deeply insane., They have the wrong guy, a female scientist who knows Sabatini and Knouse told me. In an essay published online after Katz's firing, his wife, Solveig Gold '17, a senior research assistant in Princeton's James Madison Program and a classics doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, said the University has subjected him to double jeopardy, punishing him twice for one relationship with a student. Joshua Katz says he was targeted because of his criticism of a campus protest group. But the damage was done: Joshua was now a pariah," Gold wrote. Mother Teresas, every one of you, no doubt. But none of this is victory. A man with courage of conviction, who did not walk back his comments about anti-racism when his colleagues demanded he do so. Frustrated by political labels, Professor Choueiri pronounced himself a libertine. Excerpt from todays Times story: But with attention focused on Dr. Katz, the student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, began an investigation of sexual harassment accusations against him. A man who did not let despair and depression win, even as lifelong friends deserted him overnight. He says criticism of a campus protest group is the issue. Padilla Peralta and his acolytes have repeatedly and openly declared their mission to tear it all down. And finally there was Abigail Anthony, 22, an ex-ballerina and the current vice president of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, the organization Ms. Gold helped found. Why Princeton caved to the mob. But with attention focused on Dr. Katz, the student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, began an investigation of sexual harassment accusations against him. Ms. Gold doesnt shy away from it. Mostly brave. Princeton already knew about her. But Ms. Gold has in fact drawn controversy of her own in the academic world. They married last July, four years after she finished Princeton with a summa cum laude degree in classics, and one year after Dr. Katz began his public fight with the campus left. My mom threw a lot of dinner parties, and I ended up talking to adults, Ms. Gold said. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the chair of African American studies and a critic of Dr. Katzs language, said attributing his troubles to his speech was a bad faith argument that was completely inconsistent with past statements by Mr. Eisgruber in support of free speech. The conversation between us changed. And to the complicit faculty who stood by as a mob destroyed a long-time friend and colleague: wait until they come for you. Ive been told that I was groomed because, for instance, we sometimes exchanged emails at 4 a.m. when I was a student (never mind that Joshua answers all his emails at 4 a.m.). As my mother said, No relationship is perfect. And the potential firing has only fueled the controversy with dividing lines between those who see it as thinly disguised retaliation for offensive speech, and those who believe that the furor over his remarks about race incidentally exposed additional troubling behavior. Guilty! But nobody would do it, Ms. Anthony said. Its a pretty thorough basic account, it seems to me. Dr. Katz was her professor in two classes, Egyptology and Hesiod, and her freshman adviser, but there was no romance in sight, she said, until the summer of 2017, her graduation year, and then it was a slow burn. (I do, though, enjoy grooming Joshua, who stopped visiting the barber during the pandemic.). What a loss. She and Dr. Katz privately joked that the faculty reaction was quite discriminatory toward blond women, she said. Solveig Gold, wife of former Princeton University professor Joshua Katz, wrote a substack post that detailed her relationship with her husband, who spoke out about a July 2020 proposal by. Will he ever be able to do Classics scholarship again? The Lily reviewed a copy of the wedding invitation, along with various references to the wedding on social media. Excerpt: I decided to apply for early admission to Princeton after sitting in on Professor Joshua Katz's seminar in April of 2012. Indeed, they literally doctored a quotation to drive the point home. The only thing I hear speaking for itself is Joshuas extraordinary kindness to a young man in need. From left: Joshua Katz, Martina Baillie, Robert George, Solveig Gold, Edgar Choueiri, and Bradford Wilson. In a 10-page report, dated Nov. 30, 2021, the dean detailed reasons for dismissing Dr. Katz. In December, at Lehmanns behest, the consulting firm Jones Diversity sent the Whitehead employees a survey based in part on Dr. Knouses false complaint about Dr. Sabatini, according to a complaint later brought by Sabatini. It has been included on a university website, To Be Known and Heard, that tackles Princeton and systemic racism. Shame, shame on all of you. In the midst of it all, though, we were married: July 17, 2021, during that blissful time when everyone thought Covid was over. It is true, however, that the costs are high and not for the faint of heart. As we peeled off to march two by two down the aisle and out the gate, I was serendipitously joined from across the stage by Joshua. As was widely reported, Princetons department last year voted to eliminate its language requirement for undergraduates. I entered college in 2013 under the shadow of Susan Patton, a Princeton alumna and mom who had some months before written a widely read letter to female students in the Daily Princetonian, urging them to find a husband on campus before they graduated. Because a lot of the questions in the past have simply shown that yeah, people are scared of being canceled and yes, that they support free speech and theyre against hate speech, but none of these questions really force people to choose and make trade offs between these values. Guilty! I know the facts in the case, but re-reading them in todays Times piece, it could not be more clear that Princeton went trolling for any excuse it could find to fire Joshua Katz for being a heretic against wokeness. Keith Whittington, Solveig Gold, and FIRE's Samantha Harris. Dr. Katz, 52, has also become a cause clbre among a number of conservative columnists, some of whom say that his case represents a troubling escalation in the debate over free speech on campuses, in which expressing an unorthodox opinion is not a matter of protected speech but a stain on ones character that justifies excavating past wrongs to expunge it. I am Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, generally known as ACTA. Rather, they all correctly point out or allude to the undeniable fact that the successful campaign against Katz was orchestrated by a select group of intensely agenda-driven administrators and faculty members vehemently . But his lawyer, Samantha Harris, said she was expecting the trustees to fire him. Some of Dr. Katzs colleagues are treating his Quillette article as a lesson. My fear of being canceled is more or less an acceptable price to pay to protect minority groups. So theyre buying into an ideology, which is a pretty sort of, its a pretty tough ideology that theyre willing to accept the risk of being canceled in order to uphold what they see as social justice. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Last month, as the world now knows, he was fired. The university had started an investigation after it learned of the relationship in late 2017, about ten years after it happened, and Dr. Katz confessed to a consensual affair. He arrived in a natty three-piece off-white suit with a bottle of 1997 Meursault. In an essay entitled The colorblind bard, published in The New Criterion, Ms. Gold invoked Dr. Padilla, who is Black and a Dominican immigrant, as evidence that Western Civilization does not belong to white men. In a fierce public exchange of letters after that, he criticized her for using him as a signifying monkey, the way, he wrote, some people will claim a token Black friend. Replaces Nancy Pelosi is what I wanted to say, Dr. Choueiri said. A month after the University Board of Trustees voted to dismiss classics professor Joshua Katz following an internal report finding he violated University policies, questions around his dismissal still animate discourse both on campus and beyond as alumni, professors, and students in his field react to the controversial decision.. And when Dr. Katz lost his job, Ms. Gold promptly published an essay about their relationship in Common Sense, the newsletter run by Bari Weiss, a former writer and editor for the opinion department of The New York Times. Bench scientists and party dont generally overlap.. Princeton asserted that Dr. Katz had discouraged the woman from seeking mental health treatment while they were together, for fear of disclosing their relationship; that he had pressured her not to cooperate with the investigation in 2018; and that he had hindered that investigation by not being totally honest and forthcoming, according to the report. 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