Last June, Lisa Durden, a Black Lives Matter activist and an adjunct professor at Essex County College in New Jersey, exchanged blows with Fox News host Tucker Carlson over whether a Black Lives Matter chapter could request that White people not attend one of its meetings.
“You White people are angry because you couldn’t use your ‘White privilege’ card to get invited to the Black Lives Matter’s all-black Memorial Day celebration,” Durden said during the tense exchange.
Dr. Anthony Munroe, president of Essex County College said that the administration was “immediately inundated with feedback … expressing frustration, concern and even fear.”
Durden was terminated from her adjunct position two weeks after her Fox News appearance.
Since then, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, a civil liberties group, has been advocating for Durden. The organization submitted a request for records “comprising, reflecting, or referencing” the “feedback” cited by Munroe. After 174 days and five extensions, the college has failed to produce the records. FIRE’s attorneys escalated the matter by filing a lawsuit last week.
“This lawsuit is not just about a public institution ignoring its obligation under state law to release certain information to the public,” said FIRE Staff Attorney Brynne Madway. “This suit is also about Essex County College’s responsibility to be transparent about its termination of an adjunct professor who simply voiced her opinions publicly.”
Madway said that this legal action will “remind Essex and other schools that they can’t just ignore legitimate public records requests.”
