Statement to President Harring, Provost Furge and the Board of Trustees at Muhlenberg College

We, the undersigned members of the Muhlenberg community, care deeply about our College, its reputation, our students, and our own work as intellectuals. We are alarmed to learn that our colleague Dr. Maura Finkelstein, a tenured faculty member, was fired for social media posts regarding the war in Gaza. We are also deeply dismayed by how this action furthers the erosion of academic freedom in our country. Some of us have stayed quiet about this because, in good faith, they have assumed that there was egregious behavior in the classroom that required removing Dr. Finkelstein. However, that good faith has not been reciprocated with transparent communication from our President, Provost, or Board on this matter. After weeks of news coverage and the release of the Office of Civil Rights’ report, no further evidence has been put forward by our administration. Many of us have also remained silent because Muhlenberg now operates under a culture of fear and authoritarian restriction of freedoms, instantiated by the example of Dr. Finkelstein’s unjustified disappearance from our campus. 

The College, including the staff, the faculty, the alums, and the students, are all suffering great reputational damage due to our administration’s unwillingness to respond to news reports, statements and petitions from professional organizations, and the ongoing investigation by the AAUP. 

We denounce the flawed process and results of the investigation of Dr. Finkelstein under the College’s EO policy and condemn them as antithetical to our shared values, the ethos of a liberal arts education, and the integrity of academic freedom.There is no place at Muhlenberg College for this kind of political targeting, restriction of free speech, policing of faculty's personal lives, manipulation of college policies and procedures, and apparent kow-towing. 

We call on you today, President Harring and Provost Furge, to:

1) Publicly state any and all additional reasoning for this firing and provide evidence for the accusations that Dr. Finkelstein created an unsafe classroom environment to a degree that warrants termination, according to governmental and institutional policies. 

2) Commit to fully cooperating with both FPPC and the AAUP in their investigations of this matter, including providing them with whatever information they require as part of their inquiries, and pledge to implement whatever recommendations FPPC makes when their process is concluded.

3) Pledge to work in good faith with both FPPC and the AAUP to address the gaps and flaws in both our EO policy and procedures and the faculty handbook that have been previously pointed out by FPPC and the AAUP and commit to a specific timeline for doing so.

If the administration fails to do any of these three things, faculty signatories to this letter will call for a vote of no confidence in our current College leadership.

Yours sincerely,

(the undersigned)

The Muhlenberg College Community    Contact the author of the petition