George Ciccariello-Maher, the professor who once tweeted "All I want for Christmas is white genocide," claims to have been hired as a visiting scholar by New York University's Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

Last week Ciccariello-Maher said he was driven to resign from his post at Drexel University after enduring "nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs," including "death threats and threats of violence," presumably following the professor's tweet about white genocide on Dec. 24, 2016, which sparked media backlash and earned a rebuke from his own university. Ciccariello-Maher later sought to clarify the tweet by referring to it as "satirical," even slamming Drexel for disavowing his post.

In March, he tweeted, "Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I'm trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul."

After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Ciccariello-Maher posted, "It's the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid," arguing the tragedy was caused by an overarching "narrative of white victimization."

In a Facebook post announcing his resignation, Ciccariello-Maher maintained his circumstance illustrates how the Right's efforts to "[target] campuses with thinly veiled provocations disguised as free speech" are "cynical" ploys rooted in little legitimate concern for academic freedom.

Ciccariello-Maher is not currently listed among the institute's visiting scholars online, and the Washington Examiner's request for confirmation of his hiring as so far gone unreturned.

I've responded in the past to complaints that conservative media's campaign on behalf of academic freedom is insincere and anti-free speech, arguing there are real reasons for concern when a professor acts unprofessionally or displays a worldview that is so radical it calls their ability to effectively educate students into question. Wishing for "white genocide" on Christmas probably falls into both of those categories, though I'm glad Ciccariello-Maher had the freedom to say it, so we all know where NYU students' tuition dollars are going.