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.
New Jersey middle school teacher charged with child sex assault after alleged sexual relationship with student
Appeals court pauses orders limiting federal agents’ use of tear gas at protests near Portland ICE building
United jet dodges Black Hawk in last-second maneuver over California airport: ‘That was not good’
BREAKING: Trump Ends DHS Payment Freeze Without Congress, Issues Immediate Orders to New DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin
Schumer, Dems block DHS funding again as Trump intervenes to pay TSA agents
Nancy Mace Poised to Side with Democrats to Pass War Powers Resolution: ‘War with Iran Needs to End’
Elon Musk demands judge’s recusal after latest flare-up over alleged bias
Trump declares national emergency at airports, to sign order instructing DHS to ‘immediately pay’ TSA officers
CPAC 2026 cools on Trump 2028 campaign
Bombshell Report: US Intel Finds Ukrainian Messages Detailing Plot to Swing Election Toward Biden
Andy Barr seeks to thwart ‘patently false’ Kentucky Senate ad with cease and desist
Netflix Denies Exec Called Muslims ‘Dangerous People’ After Reportedly Asking Comic to Cut Islam Joke
‘You can do everything right’: Crime reporter on sexual assault survival and lack of justice
Judge blocks Fulton County bid to force FBI testimony over seized election records
Long Island woman missing after jumping from moving vehicle in panicked state
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.
New Jersey middle school teacher charged with child sex assault after alleged sexual relationship with student
Appeals court pauses orders limiting federal agents’ use of tear gas at protests near Portland ICE building
United jet dodges Black Hawk in last-second maneuver over California airport: ‘That was not good’
BREAKING: Trump Ends DHS Payment Freeze Without Congress, Issues Immediate Orders to New DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin
Schumer, Dems block DHS funding again as Trump intervenes to pay TSA agents
Nancy Mace Poised to Side with Democrats to Pass War Powers Resolution: ‘War with Iran Needs to End’
Elon Musk demands judge’s recusal after latest flare-up over alleged bias
Trump declares national emergency at airports, to sign order instructing DHS to ‘immediately pay’ TSA officers
CPAC 2026 cools on Trump 2028 campaign
Bombshell Report: US Intel Finds Ukrainian Messages Detailing Plot to Swing Election Toward Biden
Andy Barr seeks to thwart ‘patently false’ Kentucky Senate ad with cease and desist
Netflix Denies Exec Called Muslims ‘Dangerous People’ After Reportedly Asking Comic to Cut Islam Joke
‘You can do everything right’: Crime reporter on sexual assault survival and lack of justice
Judge blocks Fulton County bid to force FBI testimony over seized election records
Long Island woman missing after jumping from moving vehicle in panicked state
Lavin later worked as an “extremism researcher” at Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog organization, before being laid off in January.
Her part-time gig at NYU soon came under fire from right-wing critics as well. Commentary magazine editor John Podhoretz suggested that journalism schools should be “neutron bombed” because of hires like Lavin. He later apologized. And Fox News host Laura Ingraham called Lavin and another NYU J-school hire, Lauren Duca, “little journo terrorists.”
In March, Lavin told the Daily Beast that the attention from right-wing media had resulted in death threats and harassment. “It’s very disconcerting when someone with 3 million viewers calls me a terrorist,” Lavin told the website. “I’ve gotten some death threats. I got lots of slurs. I have been called a ‘c—‘ 10,000 times.”
Story cited here.
