This story has been updated to include a comment from OU’s Communications and Marketing department.
Ohio University professor Thomas Hayes, an associate professor in the School of Film, has been removed from his course following his kidnapping and subsequent release at the hands of the Israel Defense Force. Hayes was removed by the university from his one in-person course this semester, the Art of Editing.
Hayes, who has been with OU since 2002, was with a team of medical professionals and journalists on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s boat Conscience, providing aid to Gaza when the vessel was hijacked in international waters, according to a previous report by The Post.
He and the other members of the flotilla were kidnapped, robbed and detained at Ketziot Prison in Israel. Hayes returned home Oct. 12, according to a video posted on Instagram.
“I was notified of my removal from the course via a Teams meeting the morning after I returned to Ohio from Israeli prison,” Hayes wrote in an email.
He also said the university told him the reason for his removal was due to a faculty handbook violation.
“The official explanation is that I violated a faculty handbook policy by supplying my students with streamable versions of my lectures, to prevent an instructional gap, during the period of my absence in a course listed as in-person rather than mixed in-person/virtual,” Hayes wrote.
Dan Pittman, a university spokesperson, said a new instructor took over instructing the course in person and will remain the instructor for the rest of the semester.
“As an accredited public institution, Ohio University has an obligation to serve its students by delivering courses that offer regular interactions with faculty who are readily available to support their needs,” Pittman wrote in an email.
Pittman added after learning Hayes informed students of his absence for an “unknown duration” and that lectures would be available online, the university designated a new instructor of record for the course.
Hayes learned Sept. 24 the flotilla would be leaving from Otranto, Italy, on Sept. 26, so he told his students to utilize the online lectures in his absence. Hayes said the issue was he did so without “dean-level approval.”
Hayes also said the decision to remove him as a professor was made last Friday, when he was still in Ketziot prison.
“I can only see the administration's precipitous action on this issue as an effort to limit my contact with my students,” Hayes wrote.
