UPDATE: CU Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore sent this message out to faculty, staff and students Monday afternoon:

The University has received a number of queries from faculty, staff, students, media and external stakeholders regarding the status of sociology professor Patti Adler.



Professor Adler has not been dismissed from the university and is not being forced to retire. Dismissal requires extensive due process proceedings, and the university does not coerce its faculty to retire. She remains a tenured faculty member in sociology at CU-Boulder.



A number of you have raised concerns about academic freedom and how it may connect to this situation. Academic freedom protects faculty who teach controversial and uncomfortable/ unpopular subjects. However, academic freedom does not allow faculty members to violate the university’s sexual harassment policy by creating a hostile environment for their teaching assistants, or for their students attending the class.



In this case, University administrators heard from a number of concerned students about Professor Adler’s “prostitution” skit, the way it was presented, and the environment it created for both students in the class and for teaching assistants. Student assistants made it clear to administrators that they felt there would be negative consequences for anyone who refused to participate in the skit. None of them wished to be publicly identified.



The Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and the Chair of the Sociology Department determined that professor Adler would not teach the class in the spring semester (2014). Pending a review by faculty in sociology and in accordance with the needs of the department, professor Adler may be eligible to teach the course in the future.



To reiterate, professor Adler has not been fired or forced to retire. As to comments she has made that she might be fired in the future, I should note that any employee at the University – including faculty members – found responsible for violating the University’s sexual harassment policy, is subject to discipline up to and including termination.



The University fully supports the teaching of controversial subjects, and the ability of faculty to challenge students in the classroom and prompt critical thinking. At no time was the subject of professor Adler’s course in question. Rather, it was the manner in which the material was presented in one particular classroom exercise and the impact of that manner of presentation on teaching assistants and students.