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.

Trump-backed affordable housing overhaul clears Senate, while House GOP raises red flags

Clyburn, 85, bucks Democrat generational revolt with bid for 18th term in Congress

New Bill to Ban Abortion Pill Hits Senate

House Democrats ask ICE for contracts on 2,500 marked vehicles overbought under Noem

Missing retired Air Force general consulted on UFOs for Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge

Piers Morgan Asks Former MSNBC Host Mehdi Hasan 7 Times if He’s Glad Khamenei’s Reign Is Over, Gets No Answer

US destroys aging Iranian warplanes, video shows

Powell’s behind-the-scenes move after Trump’s DOJ opened its criminal probe

Texas death row inmate uses final statement before execution to speak directly to victims’ family

CNN’s Ana Navarro Busted for Falsely Claiming NYC Bomber Was Targeting Mamdani Just Hours Before Abby Phillips Apologized for Making the Same Mistake

Op-Ed: Trump and Clinton’s Similarities are Glaring, Why Do Dems See Them So Differently?

GOP billionaire trying to woo Trump’s support in key Georgia race bankrolled his 2024 presidential rivals

Nancy Pelosi endorses former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn in second congressional bid

Watch: Hilarious Video of Bill Clinton Pushing Hillary Clinton Into Busy Intersection

At least 15 senior CBP employees were pushed out under Noem: Sources

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.