A routine public meeting about school closures on Manhattan’s West Side has exploded into a citywide controversy — after a Hunter College professor was caught on a live microphone making remarks that parents and elected officials are calling racist and deeply harmful.

The comments came during a Feb. 10 Community Education Council meeting, where families gathered — both in person and virtually — to debate a contentious proposal from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to close or relocate several public schools.

As one student, described by attendees as Black, spoke passionately about her teachers and pleaded against the potential closure of her school, another voice suddenly cut in.

“They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” the voice said, according to a recording of the meeting.

The speaker was later identified as Allyson Friedman, a tenured associate professor in Hunter College’s Department of Biological Sciences. She was attending the meeting virtually as a public school parent and, by her own account, did not realize her microphone was turned on.

“If you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back,” Friedman continued in the recording. “You don’t have to tell them anymore.”

The words landed like a bomb in a room already charged with tension over school closures. Parents appeared stunned. One attendee quickly interrupted, addressing Friedman by name.

“What you’re saying is absolutely hearable here. You’ve got to stop.”

The comment referencing “use the back” appeared to echo a quote shared earlier in the meeting by the district’s interim acting superintendent, Reginald Higgins. He had cited historian Carter G. Woodson, known as the father of Black history, who once wrote: “If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told.”

But the distinction between quoting a historical warning about systemic racism and what parents heard in real time blurred almost instantly.

Hunter College confirmed that Friedman made the remarks. In an emailed statement Sunday, she said she had been attempting to explain systemic racism to her child, who was in the room with her, by referencing what she described as “an obviously racist trope.”

“My complete comments make clear these abhorrent views are not my own, nor were they directed at any student or group,” Friedman said. “I fully support these courageous students in their efforts to stop school closures.”

She acknowledged, however, that the microphone error meant only part of her explanation was audible.

“I recognize these comments caused harm and pain, while that was not my intent I do truly apologize,” she added.

The damage was already done.

Dr. Higgins emailed families after the meeting, criticizing an unnamed adult for making “demeaning assumptions” about the ability and potential of Black children. Once the recording circulated online, outrage quickly spread beyond the West Side school community.

Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan borough president, denounced the remarks as anti-Black and called it “particularly despicable” that children were exposed “to this hatred.”

Eric Dinowitz, chair of the City Council’s education committee, described the comments as “horrendous” and urged the Education Department to confront “broader issues of racism within our school communities.”

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, who is Black, said the city was working “to repair the deep harm that these words have caused.”

“Our students and our community deserve better,” Samuels said in a statement.

Hunter College, which is part of the City University of New York and operates independently from the city’s K-12 system, announced it would review whether Friedman’s remarks violated its policies.

“We expect our community members’ actions and words to comport with our institutional identity, values and policies,” the college said. “We stand firm in our enduring commitment to sustain an inclusive educational environment.”

The controversy comes at a politically sensitive moment. The Mamdani administration’s proposal to restructure several West Side schools has already been viewed as an early test of the mayor’s pledge to prioritize parent input.

The plan includes relocating the popular Center School to a new campus, eliminating middle school grades at P.S./I.S. 191, and closing middle school programs at the Community Action School and the Manhattan School for Children, which face declining enrollment.

Many families argue that the changes would disrupt thriving programs and fracture tight-knit communities. Others note that school closures and consolidations often disproportionately affect Black and Latino students in a system where nearly 20 percent of students are Black.

Rita Joseph, a City Council member who chairs the higher education committee, said the episode laid bare deeper issues.

“We cannot talk about school closures, equity or educational opportunity without confronting the culture and systems that devalue Black students and communities,” she said.

For some parents, the hot mic moment crystallized fears that debates about enrollment and performance too easily slip into assumptions about worth.

For others, it raised questions about context, intent, and how public servants and educators discuss race — even privately — in a moment of heightened scrutiny.

And as Hunter College reviews the matter and city leaders navigate the fallout, one thing is certain: the conversation about equity in New York’s schools just became impossible to ignore.