Ex-Stanford professor says he was fired, doxxed after colonialism lecture

Amy Larson
·3 min read
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(KRON) — A professor who was booted from Stanford University after freshmen students complained about his lecture on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict filed a defamation and retaliation lawsuit in federal court.

Dr. Ameer Loggins’ attorney filed the suit Wednesday against the prestigious university, a student, and a fellow professor who labeled him as one of the two “most racist faculty members” on Stanford’s campus.

Loggins claims he was terminated over a classroom lecture he gave on October 10, 2023. Three days earlier in Israel, Hamas gunmen stormed across Gaza’s border, ambushed a music festival, and killed about 1,200 people.

The class, “College 101,” was for freshmen new at the university. Loggins engaged his class in a discussion about settler colonialism and talked about Native Americans.  As part of this discussion, he also sparked a “difficult dialogue about dehumanization, Israel and Gaza.”

After the lecture, students complained to Stanford officials.

Their professor was suspended on October 11 while officials investigated whether his lectures utilized identity-based targeting.  According to Stanford University President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez, Loggins “addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their background and identities.”

Loggins was accused of anti-Semitism. He had been suspended since the incident and recently learned that his contract, which expired April 1, was not renewed.

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Backlash left the professor feeling “extremely shocked, hurt, and taken aback by these allegations and offended by this discriminatory investigation,” the lawsuit states.

According to the lawsuit, Stanford violated its own personnel policy by issuing a public statement about Loggins’ suspension following pressure from students.

At the time, tensions were high on many college campuses over the War in Gaza, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia. The professor claims he endured a wave of harassment, including threats of violence and doxing online.

Dr.-Ameer-Loggins-complaintDownload

“Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students,” university officials wrote in a statement. Students said the instructor tried to justify Hamas’ actions and asserted Israel is a colonizer, Rabbi Dov Greenberg told CNN.

The lawsuit wrote the following about what happened during the controversial lecture:

  • “Plaintiff informed the classroom that he was not asking the students to pick sides
    between Israel or Palestine.”

  • “As the dialogue continued, Plaintiff wanted to ensure that students did not conflate the group Hamas with the Palestinian people. Plaintiff wanted the focus to be on Palestinian civilians.”

  • “Plaintiff duly asked whether any Jewish students were present in the classroom, in an effort to speak to diversity within the Jewish diaspora and to demonstrate to the students that the Jewish diaspora is not one with a monolithic politic. Plaintiff’s intention was categorically not to isolate Jewish students.”

  • “Plaintiff asserts that Gaza, as Human Rights Watch calls the largest open-air prison in the world, is an extreme version of a scripted space.”

Attorney Derek Sells of The Cochran Firm is representing Loggins.

Biden tells Israel’s Netanyahu future US support for war depends on new steps to protect civilians

President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that future U.S. support for Israel’s Gaza war depends on the swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians. Biden’s message marked a sharp change in his administration’s steadfast support for Israel’s war efforts, with the U.S. leader for the first time threatening to rethink his backing.

Biden also told Netanyahu that an “immediate cease-fire is essential” and urged Israel to reach such an accord “without delay,” according to the White House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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