Palm Beach Atlantic professor fired after racial justice lessons

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida English professor whose lessons about racial justice put him at odds with his university’s administrators has been fired, the professor said.

Sam Joeckel, a veteran professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, said in a statement Thursday that the West Palm Beach school had “made the disappointing decision to terminate my contract early.”

The move comes a month after school administrators told Joeckel they were investigating a concern raised by a parent that he was “indoctrinating” his students by incorporating lessons about racial justice into his writing composition course.

Joeckel, who has taught at the 3,700-student Christian school for two decades, said he has long included teachings about racial justice in the class and that administrators had never expressed concerns about them before.