Photo Courtesy of NYU
A Fordham University professor was fired after negatively reacting to an email two black students had sent him after he confused them for each other as they arrived at class late on Sept. 24.
According to the school’s newspaper, the Fordham Observer, lecturer Christopher Trogan responded to the email by sending a mass message to both sections of his Composition II class. In the response, he wrote off the misnaming incident as “a simple, human, error” having “nothing to do with race” and detailed his history of allyship to Black people.
“It seemed a little excessive like all you needed to do was say sorry, and it would have been fine,” said Chantel Sims, one of the two students involved.
“We were not actually that upset about him mixing up our names. It was more so the random things he would throw into the response.”
Sims noted that she found the section of the email dedicated to “everything he has done for minorities” distinctly off-putting.
“I felt really disrespected,” the freshman said. “I did not feel heard because every time he (misnamed me), I would tell him, and it just seemed like he would brush it off or that he did not care.”
The former professor described the name mix-up as an “innocent mistake” and said he had a “confused brain” because the two students arrived late while reading another student’s work at the lecturer podium, The Observer reported.
“The offended student assumed my mistake was because I confused that student with another Black student,” Trogan said in his email to students. “I have done my best to validate and reassure the offended student that I made a simple, human error. It has nothing to do with race.”
Trogan ended the email by stating he is willing to give up his position if the students feel like they have been discriminated against.
“Depending on your response to the officials above, I may — or may not — be your professor in class next week. It’s all up to you,” he wrote.
On Sept. 26, two days after the incident, Trogan was placed on suspension and asked not to further communicate with his students. Following an Oct. 5 Zoom meeting with Eva Badowska, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and associate vice president, arts and sciences, Trogan was officially terminated on Oct. 24, the Observer reported.
Regarding his termination letter, the professor stated that Badowska did not focus on the fact that he had confused the students’ names but rather on the mass email he sent to his two classes.
As a follow-up to his termination, the former instructor sent a nine-page email to 80 former students recounting the events that led to his firing and the immediate impact on his life.
“Their team of lawyers may now even come after me — even after my termination — with threats and charges against me personally and professionally for sending this to you, but I will deal with those when they come,” he wrote.
The institution’s associate vice president of Public Safety advised Trogan not to come onto university property and reminded him that he should refrain from contacting students as he is no longer part of the school’s faculty.
Fordham University is a top-ranked Catholic institution in New York City, but the confused man also teaches at NYU.