In the first public comments he's made since writing a letter apologizing for his actions, Connecticut College philosophy professor Andrew Pessin is speaking out about the backlash he received from those who believed he wrote an anti-Palestinian post in August on his personal Facebook page.

Pessin's comments came after The Day published a story about George Mason University law professor David Bernstein's defense of Pessin on the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy blog, a group blog written mostly by law professors. The posts appeared online on April 8 and on April 13. Bernstein told The Day he'd never met Pessin before.

"I think the most important point David Bernstein was making was that the initial case students made against my Facebook post from last summer was based on what now appears to be deliberate misrepresentation of my words," Pessin said by email late Monday night. "They got the whole campus outraged that I was calling for genocide when in fact I was calling for the defeat of Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group that I believe is the single biggest impediment to a peaceful two-state solution."

On Aug. 11, 2014, Pessin posted on his Facebook page, saying "I'm sure someone could make a cartoon of this, but one image which essentializes the current situation in Gaza might be this. You've got a rabid pitbull in a cage, regularly making mass efforts to escape." Later on the post says, "Gaza is in the cage because of its repeated efforts to destroy Israel and Jews."

Pessin said he wrote the post, one in a series of 11 about Hamas, during the Hamas-Israel war last summer.

Throughout those posts, he said, "I clearly distinguish between Hamas and Gazan civilians and attribute the violence that comes from Gaza to be from Hamas."

Lamiya Khandaker was one of four students who initially wrote about the situation in the school's independent, student-run newspaper The College Voice. Khandaker's letter titled "Why Hate Speech is Not Free Speech in an 'Inclusive Excellence' Community" was published online on March 3.

Khandaker said by email late Monday night that "The outrage over Pessin's Facebook post was because of his attempt to justify dehumanizing language with the analogy of a 'cage' and 'owner' power dynamic against a group of people in a sensitive region."

She continued, "As young academics we see this type of language as problematic coming from a professor."

Pessin wrote a letter to the editor apologizing for his Facebook post. He is currently out on leave. Pessin said in his email that he "requested and received a medical leave effective March 23, from the stress of the situation and from the hate mail and threats I was receiving."

In his email Monday night, Pessin said, "not one single person who vilified me or condemned me ever communicated with me or asked me to explain the post. Most people seemed to prefer to project their own meanings onto the words, or just go with the meanings the students misrepresented the post as having, and vilify me for that."

While Pessin wrote the Facebook post in August 2014, it apparently went unnoticed for six months.

Pessin said a student, though he doesn't name the student in his email, first complained to him about the post on Feb. 20.

"I explained to her that she had misinterpreted the post, but apologized for any unclarity inviting that misinterpretation and deleted the post immediately, because of any unclarity," he said.

Khandaker said in her email that "This started when 4 students stumbled upon it in a public Connecticut College Philosophy Department Facebook page, and forwarded it to me and many others."

She continued: "My initial letter to the editor in The College Voice was not the reason for attention to his Facebook post; it was going to receive attention regardless of whether I wrote my piece or not."

A month ago, the paper's editor in chief and several others started an online petition calling for a public statement from the college administration declaring that it does not condone Pessin's "racism and dehumanization." The petition has received more than 550 signatures.

Pessin's Facebook post ignited discussions among students and faculty about intolerance, institutional racism and free speech on the Connecticut College campus. Hundreds of students, alumni and faculty members filled the college's Palmer Auditorium last month as President Katherine Bergeron sought to bring the college community together.

"I was taken aback as much by its central image as by its vehemence," Bergeron said of the Facebook post. "At the very least, the intervention seemed to show poor judgment. It was not in keeping with the level of discourse I have come to expect from the Connecticut College community and, in particular, from its faculty."

Bergeron to did not denounce Pessin or the contents of his Facebook post, as some students had urged, but instead offered an impassioned defense of the First Amendment.

"Freedom of speech is absolutely essential to the integrity of a college like ours that operates according to fiercely held values of academic freedom and shared governance," Bergeron said. "No institution should abridge the right of students, faculty and staff to express their views freely and openly."

Less than a week ago, a group called "Free Speech" created an online petition titled "Support Free Speech and Professor Andrew Pessin." That petition has received more than 3,500 signatures.

Khandaker is the Student Government Association's current chair of Diversity and Equity, an elected position that she said "brings the concerns of underrepresented students to attention to the student government assembly, in addition to taking initiatives that he or she finds important which will address issues of diversity and/or equity."

She described the environment at Conn College as one "in which all forms of intellectual conversations are open. I do not facilitate conversations over Israel and Palestine, nor do I set the tone for conversations regarding Israel or Palestine. I have my personal views regarding the issue and others have their own. I have never seen suppression or disrespect of either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine voices during my time here."

What happened, Khandaker said, "was not about Israel and Palestine. This was about having a community dialogue over our college values and the use of disrespectful and dehumanizing speech coming from academics with influence, and that is what all our forums and public conversations have been about."

Pessin was not present at those forums, according to Khandaker.

Staff writer Colin A. Young contributed to this report.

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung