Professor fired for anti-Semitic posts on Facebook

A faculty member at Oberlin College was dismissed after the school condemned anti-Semitic and false accusations she posted on social media.

Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Joy Karega has been on paid leave for eight months.

The Oberlin College Board of Trustees said in a statement they "concluded that Dr. Karega's postings could not be justified as part of her scholarship," according to BuzzFeed News.

The statement noted that her posts impaired her ability to teach.

Karega taught classes at Oberlin such as "Writing For Social Justice."

Pro-Israel magazine the Tower took screenshots of her posts in February, but they were deleted from her page after they went viral.

According to BuzzFeed News, a post she made in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris showed an ISIS fighter tearing off a mask of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She linked the attack to a conspiracy theory that Israel caused the attack to get France to stop supporting Palestine.

In 2014, Karega shared a photo of banker Jacob Rothschild. The text in the post said, "We own nearly every central bank in the world. We financed both sides of every war since Napoleon. We own your news, the media, your oil and your government."

In yet another post, Karega falsely accused Israel of taking down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

All things considered, it seems obvious that the same people behind the massacre in Gaza are behind the shooting down MA-17," she wrote. "

The Israeli ground offensive began the very same day Flight 17 was shot down."

Oberlin's President Marvin Krislov said in response, though he is Jewish and had family who died in the Holocaust, that he believes in the freedom of expression.

Regardless, Karega was suspended.

Scott Wargo, the director of media relations for Oberlin, said in a statement that the college carefully considered Karega's social media posts.

She was terminated Tuesday, and in the official announcement, the college emphasized the fact Karega refused to apologize for the things she posted.

"Her continued presence undermines the mission and values of Oberlin's academic community," the college said in a statement.

"Thus, any sanction short of dismissal is insufficient and the Board of Trustees is compelled to take this most serious action."

Karega told Inside Higher Education that she plans to challenge the college's decision, and her Facebook posts were taken out of context.