Overview
- Hunter College President Nancy Cantor said Wednesday that associate professor Allyson Friedman was placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
- The incident occurred Feb. 10 during a Community Education Council District 3 Zoom meeting, where a recording captured remarks including “They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school.”
- Friedman also invoked a line she attributed to Martin Luther King Jr., which echoed a Carter G. Woodson quote referenced earlier in the meeting by a district superintendent.
- In statements to news outlets and a Substack post, Friedman said she was inadvertently unmuted while explaining systemic racism to her child, maintained the remarks were taken out of context, and apologized for the harm caused.
- City leaders including the mayor and the schools chancellor condemned the comments as harmful to students, and some community members have called for her termination.