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'I was publicly lynched', says college professor fired after Fox News debate on Black Lives Matter event

Lisa Durden was dismissed as the adjunct communications professor at Essex County College after the interview: Fox News
Lisa Durden was dismissed as the adjunct communications professor at Essex County College after the interview: Fox News

A professor at a community college says she was “publicly lynched” after she was fired in a row sparked by her views on a blacks only event.

Political commentator Lisa Durden was dismissed as the adjunct communications professor at Essex County College in New Jersey, roughly two weeks after she gave a fiery interview on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Essex County College's president Anthony Munroe said officials at the school had received complaints about her heated interview with Carlson.

In the exchange, Durden defended a Black Lives Matter chapter’s decision to host a Memorial Day event in New York exclusively for black people.

She said to Carlson: “Boo hoo hoo. You white people are angry because you couldn't use your white privilege card' to get invited to the Black Lives Matter’s all-black Memorial Day celebration.”

She defended the group for wanting to have “one day where they didn’t want white folks”.

Carlson responded by calling her “hostile and separatist and crazy.”

He added: “You’re demented actually. You’re sick and what you’re saying is disgusting and if you were a Nazi I would say the same thing to you.”

The school suspended Durden two days after her comments, which drew both criticism and praise on social media, and she was fired on Friday.

Lisa Durden said she was
Lisa Durden said she was

Munroe said in a statement that the administration was “immediately inundated with feedback from students... expressing frustration, concern and even fear that the views expressed by a college employee would negatively impact their experience on the campus.

He added: “In consideration of the College’s mission, and the impact that this matter has had on the College’s fulfilment of its mission, we cannot maintain an employment relationship with the adjunct.”

Durden said the firing was unjust, claiming “there was no due process, there were no facts.”

She said in an interview with The Washington Post: "I was publicly lynched. They didn’t let me finish the class and they disrupted the learning process.”

She added that she had the right to exercise free speech, and said: “This particular day was a hard topic. It was a debate. It was not meant to be something that was an easy conversation.”