A New York City professor is under fire for a “blatantly racist” hot mic moment.
Allyson Friedman works as an associate professor at Hunter College, and she made the shocking interjection during a February 10 Community Education Council discussion about a black eighth-grade student’s shutdown concerns. The child was speaking when Friedman piped up, apparently unaware that her commentary could be heard by everyone present at the online meeting.
“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” she said. “If you train a black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore.”
Watch:
What a horrifically racist comment from someone who appears to be from The Center School where Cynthia Nixon sent her child and who has vehemently been pushing back on a school merger because of “equity”. Here’s the video clip of the incident: https://t.co/KZadDoeR28 pic.twitter.com/Yrqx7vpSiG
— Jean (@queens_parents) February 20, 2026
This comment may have been a reference to “a comment made by Reginald Higgins, the school district’s interim acting superintendent, who spoke about Carter G. Woodson — the father of black history,” according to The New York Post.
“If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told,” reads an excerpt of Woodson’s 1933 book “The Mis-education of the Negro.”
Those gathered for the meeting were clearly shocked by the candid commentary.
“In service to Hunter College, we expect our community members’ actions and words to comport with our institutional identity, values, and policies,” a spokesperson from Hunter College said in a statement to The Daily Mail. “We stand firm in our enduring commitment to sustain an inclusive educational environment that is free of discrimination of any kind, in which people of all identities will feel welcome and can thrive.”
City Council Education Chair Rita Joseph condemned Friedman’s comments.
“I am deeply disturbed by the blatantly racist and harmful remarks made during the CEC3 meeting… There is absolutely no place for this type of language in any space and certainly not in a forum centered on our children and their education,” she said, adding that the remarks represent a “deeper and enduring issue within our New York City public school system: systemic racism that continues to show up in policies, practices and as we saw, in rhetoric.”
Friedman tried to clear up the controversy surrounding her comments in a statement:
My complete comments make clear these abhorrent views are not my own, nor were they directed at any student or group. I fully support these courageous students in their efforts to stop school closures. However, I recognize these comments caused harm and pain, while that was not my intent I do truly apologize.
She claimed that she was speaking to her child at the time and didn’t realize her microphone was still on, according to The New York Times, saying that she had been “trying to explain the concept of systemic racism by referencing an example of an obviously racist trope.”
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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