Dive Brief:

• Columbia College Chicago is accused of violating academic freedom for canceling portions of an adjunct professor’s course.
• The professor teaches a course about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he accused Columbia College of making the cancelations after a student complained that he was biased.
• The college is claiming that scheduling and enrollment demands led to the cancelations, and that it strongly supports academic freedom.

Dive Insight:

The Israeli-Palestinian issue is, of course, one of the biggest hot-button topics on campuses today. The Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors complained about the alleged violation of academic freedom in a letter to Louise Love, Columbia College’s interim provost, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The professor, Iymen Chehade, had a section of his course canceled following the student complaint, then a second section was canceled days after an adversarial meeting with the department chair.