University Professor Fights Free Speech Battle

0:00On April 22, University of Arkansas English Professor Moja Koff faced a Title IX probe last year over pro-Palestinian posters on her office door. Investigators ruled they violated the school's discrimination and harassment policy, specifically Fayetteville Procedures 214.1. The report recommended counseling her to take them down and avoid similar displays, but no punishment followed. That November report first went to the Arkansas Governor's office before landing at the University's Title IX team. Now Koff has hired the same lawyer, repping a fired African American Studies Director in a civil rights suit against the school. Her attorney calls it a crackdown on free speech, an academic freedom, labeling protected political views as bias, just because they're controversial. This echoes the case of another professor, Sharon Saidi, who got suspended with pay and then fired in December for social media posts on Israel and Iran. Plus using school letterhead, critics see a pattern of political pressure targeting middle

1:01east-related expression at the university. Koff teaches Palestinian literature in Arab American topics, and the posters in question included a phrase like, from the river to the sea, and A. Comic-Sum saw as comparing Israel to the Ku Klux Klan. A student complaint sparked it with photos, but the reporter backed out. Her doors in a quiet hallway corner, not high traffic. Even after the warning, Koff's door still shows first amendment prints, poems, and conflict-related art, including that same phrase. It's unclear if the university will push further, but lawyers are watching close as this academic-free speech fight heats up.