Brooklyn College in New York City is coming under criticism for dismissing an adjunct professor after a local politician claimed the professor was biased against Israel. Kristofer Petersen-Overton was let go last week, one day after New York Democratic State Assemblyman Dov Hikind complained about the professor’s politics. Petersen-Overton said he was dismissed before he even had a chance to teach his first class, a graduate seminar on Middle East politics.

Kristofer Petersen-Overton: “It seemed that one of the students in the class googled me and took objection to some of the political stances I’ve taken in the past vis-a-vis the Israeli, Palestinian conflict. They expressed these concerns to the head of the department, he asked her to wait until the class actually began before continuing to complain; unfortunately she didn’t. She started spreading this around on the blogs and quite quickly in fact, disturbingly fast, a campaign to vilify me was spread all over the internet.”