How a Professor Was Punished for an Act of Citizenship
Michael Fischler is an award-winning professor emeritus of education at Plymouth State University, a public institution in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He founded its Counseling and Human Relations Center, led it for four decades, and ultimately saw it officially renamed in his honor.
But that honor has now been stripped, his attorneys say, and he is being asked to complete Title IX training before he is again allowed to teach––unlawfully so, they claim, as a punishment for constitutionally protected speech.
Last year, Fischler was contacted by a lawyer representing one of his former students, Kristie Torbick, a high-school guidance counselor in her late 30s. She had been arrested and stood accused of a shocking crime: engaging in sex acts with a 14-year-old to whom she was providing therapy.
The mother of three had yet to admit guilt and it was unclear if she would contest the charges. Would Fischler be willing to submit a letter to her defense lawyer setting forth his recollections of his former student?
He obliged, offering impressions formed over a three-year period a decade earlier. Everything he wrote was explicitly
