David Klein (mathematician)

{{short description|American mathematician}}

David Klein is a professor of Mathematics at California State University in Northridge.{{sfn|Klein|2015}} He is an advocate of increasingly rigorous treatment of mathematics in school curricula and a frequently cited opponent of reforms based on the NCTM standards. One of the participants in the founding of Mathematically Correct, Klein appears regularly in the Math Wars.{{cn|date=November 2020}}

Klein, who is a member of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel,{{cn|date=February 2024}} supports the BDS movement which seeks to impose comprehensive boycotts against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.{{sfn|Tripp|2013|p=125}} Klein hosts a webpage supportive of the BDS movement on his university website and, starting in 2011, it became the target of numerous complaints from the pro-Israel groups AMCHA Initiative, Shurat HaDin, and the Global Frontier Justice Center who claimed that it constituted a misuse of state resources.{{cn|date=February 2024}}{{harvnb|Tugend|2013|ps=: AI has accused CSU of allowing Klein to violate various sections of the California Education Code by misusing the university’s server to promote boycotts}} The complaints were dismissed both by the university's staff and by legal authorities as baseless.{{harvnb|Tugend|2013|ps=: Over the course of the last two years, AI’s appeals have been consistently denied by authorities, starting with California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, whose staff determined that Klein had not misused CSUN’s name and resources. Last month, on Sept. 23, CSU’s interim general counsel, G. Andrew Jones, wrote Rossman-Benjamin that, while both he and CSUN President Dianne Harrison disagreed with Klein’s views, the contents of his Web site do not violate California law and count as “constitutionally protected speech.”}}{{cite news |last=Moskowitz |first=Shira |date=October 15, 2013 |title=CSUN professor sparks a debate regarding academic freedom of speech for professors |url=https://sundial.csun.edu/71218/news/csun-professor-sparks-a-debate-regarding-academic-freedom-of-speech-for-professors/ |work=Daily Sundial |location=Northridge, California |access-date=November 1, 2023}}

Concordant with his support for the BDS movement, Klein defended University of Michigan associate professor John Cheney-Lippold's decision to decline to write a letter of recommendation to a student who planned to study in Israel.{{harvnb|The College Fix|2018|ps=: California State University-Northridge Prof. David Klein, who opposes study abroad programming in Israel, told Inside Higher Ed a professor can refuse to write a letter “under any circumstances” and it’s “ethical” to refuse:}}

Klein is the director of CSUNs Climate Science Program.{{cn|date=November 2020}}