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.

FBI raids Eric Swalwell’s property, seizes devices at airport in sexual misconduct investigation

Sherrill escalates Trump fight over voter fiasco day after Mullin praises NJ cooperation

ActBlue co-founder pleads Fifth Amendment in closed-door House GOP grilling

Ocasio-Cortez endorses Massachusetts Senate incumbent Ed Markey

USS George Washington arrives in Middle East

U.S. Conducting Successful ‘Stealth Operation’ in the Strait of Hormuz: Report

Harry and Meghan Abandoning US, Returning to Britain as Eye-Watering Monthly Cost of Their CA Mansion Is Revealed

Bloodied, ejected Marine Corps pilot seen calm and collected after Washington crash destroys aircraft

New judge has days to decide whether Karmelo Anthony’s conviction and 35-year sentence survive

Battle over federal courthouses erupts as GSA warns against giving judiciary more control

FL Voters Boot Cory Mills, the GOP Rep. Who Helped Keep Ilhan Omar from Being Stripped of Her Committee Assignments

The last January 6 case? Former DC police officer fighting conviction over contact with ex-Proud Boys leader

Trump urged to stop targeting fellow Republicans as GOP fights to keep majority

Biden admin released illegal immigrant accused of fatally stabbing Fairfax County mother

How one NYC suburb could decide which party controls the House

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.