A Hunter College professor who sparked widespread outrage after she wascaught making a “blatantly racist” commentduring a New York City public schools video meeting is being reviewed by her employer — but may keep her job thanks to her cushy tenure.
Allyson Friedman, anassociate professor of biologyat the Manhattan CUNY school, came under fire after her shocking remarks were caught on a hot mic, interrupting a black eighth-grader who was raising concerns about her Upper West Side school possibly facing a shutdown during a Community Education Council meeting on Feb. 10.
“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” Friedman washeard saying while her mic was unknowingly unmuted, according to a recording of the meeting posted online.
“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 being told,” Woodson wrote in his 1933 book “The Mis-education of the Negro.”
Two other adults in the virtual meeting quickly called out the professor, who was attending as a parent of a public school student.
“Allyson Friedman, what you’re saying is absolutely hearable here. You’ve got to stop,” one man snapped while others sat in shock, their hands clamped over their mouths.
The entire meeting went dead silent for about 10 seconds before the moderators apologized to the student and urged her to continue.
Backlash to Friedman’s remarks was swift once the video clip circulated online.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
