Russell Sage College President Mathew Shaftel said the college remains committed to teaching the history of the Holocaust, along with the history experienced by “all oppressed groups.”

Harvey Strum has taught history at Russell Sage College for almost four decades. In most recent years, he has taught at least one class about the Holocaust.

The work is personal for the 76-year-old academic: The Nazis decimated his mother’s family, and Strum wants to ensure that crime is never forgotten.

In February, though, the professor received a surprise: “Final Solution and Genocide,” a course he planned to teach this fall, was abruptly canceled. Strum says that Sage administrators told him they wanted more diversity in the history curriculum.

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Strum appealed to the dean and got “Final Solution” reinstated, but he subsequently learned that one of the few other history courses offered this fall at Sage was scheduled at the same time as his class, which examines the Holocaust and other examples of genocide. Strum sees the scheduling conflict, which he termed highly unusual, as an attempt to depress enrollment so there would be no choice but to cancel his class.

It is no coincidence, Strum believes, that this is happening after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent........

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