NYU Cancels Former New Yorker Fact-Checker Talia Lavin’s Journalism Class

New York University has canceled an undergraduate journalism class that former New Yorker fact-checker Talia Lavin was scheduled to teach this fall after only two students signed up.

The decision to hire Lavin to teach the elective, “Reporting on the Far Right,” had drawn criticism since she resigned her New Yorker position last June after falsely accusing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of having a Nazi tattoo.

Adam Penenberg, director of undergraduate studies at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, said that low enrollment forced him to cancel the class. “Canceling the class had nothing to do with Talia’s writings, tweets, or anything else. We cancelled it because too few students enrolled,” Penenberg added.

Lavin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NYU journalism electives are capped at 15 students, though the department has run courses with as few as eight students under certain circumstances.

Penenberg also said it was unlikely his department would invite Lavin back. “It would make no sense to try it again, given how few students expressed interest,” he said. “We have no plans to offer Talia another course, simply because her main focus (and the focus of her upcoming book) is the far right.”

Lavin’s official NYU faculty bio — which lauded her as an expert in “far-right extremism and social justice” — was removed sometime around April 20, 2019, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Republicans believe college campus chaos works in their favor

War veteran in crucial battleground race expands campaign, sets sights firmly on vulnerable Democrat

Crash outside White House security barrier leaves 1 dead: Police

Class Warfare: IRS Promises to Increase Audits of ‘Wealthy’ Taxpayers by at Least 50% – Report

Stock Drops Like a Rock After Woke CEO Says He’s ‘Eager’ to Hire Anti-Israel Protesters

‘Irrevocably Shaken’: Why Columbia Law Review Editors Are Demanding Cancellation of Exams

Jack Smith’s Team Admits They Tampered with Key Evidence in Trump’s Case, Misled the Court About It

GOP Governor Declares War on Lab-Grown Meat, Signs Law Making Distribution, Sale, Manufacture Illegal

Columbia president calls last 2 weeks ‘among the most difficult’ in school’s history amid anti-Israel protests

White House Mocked for ‘Cringe’ Luke Skywalker Press Briefing Appearance

Bidenomics Is Killing the American Dream of Owning Your Own Home Nationwide – Study

Anti-Israel groups accuse Chicago, DNC of trying to ‘protect’ Biden from protests at 2024 Dem convention

Communist Concentration Camp Survivor Could Die While In US Prison for Peaceful Pro-Life Demonstration

Boy Gives His Last Dollar to Man He Thought Was Homeless – Everything Changes When Man’s Identity Is Revealed

Ship That Went Missing on American Waterway Has Finally Been Found

In her original course, Lavin promised a fulsome exploration of the “far right,” saying she would show students how to track and identify online extremism.

“In an era when hate is on the rise, this course will provide student journalists with a thorough grounding in far-right and white-supremacist movements in the United States, briefly examining their history and delving into their sprawling present incarnations,” reads a now deleted course description, which also promised “a careful analysis of pieces that have fallen short of the mark.”

Lavin’s three-year career as a fact checker at The New Yorker was derailed last June after she tweeted an accusation that Justin Gaertner, a wheelchair-bound ICE agent, of sporting a Nazi Iron Cross tattoo over his left elbow. She later deleted the tweet and apologized after learning the tattoo represented a Maltese Cross, a symbol commonly used by members of the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Though the original misleading tweet was only up for a short time, Lavin earned a public rebuke from both ICE and her employer that led to her voluntary resignation.