Franke began practicing law in the 1980s as a civil rights litigator, having received a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to work on addressing social discrimination faced by people with AIDS. She then joined the New York City Commission on Human Rights as a supervising attorney in its newly created AIDS division.[3] In 1990, Franke was named executive director of the National Lawyers Guild.
Franke began her academic career in 1995 at the James E. Rogers College of Law of the University of Arizona and then taught at Fordham University School of Law from 1997 until 2000, when she joined the Columbia Law faculty.
Franke received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 to carry out research on the costs of winning marriage rights for same sex couples and African Americans during the mid-19th century, and her research was published into the book Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality (2015).[4][5]
In 2018, Franke traveled to Israel as part of a 14-member human rights delegation touring Israel and the West Bank. However, she was detained and deported[6] with Israeli authorities accusing her of ties to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.[7]
In October 2023, following the start of the Gaza War, Franke co-authored an open letter, signed by more than 150 Columbia faculty, entitled "in defense of robust debate about the history and meaning of the war in Israel/Gaza",[8] which was later criticized in a subsequent letter signed by 300 other Columbia faculty members.[9]
In January 2024, an odiferous, possibly hazardous,[10] substance was released at pro-Palestinian students at university on the Columbia University campus.[11] One of the students suspended in connection with the incident was identified as a former member of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).[12] In a subsequent interview with Democracy Now!, Franke said many Israeli students coming straight from military service were known to harass Palestinian and other students.
We have a — Columbia has a program. It’s a graduate relationship with older students from other countries, including Israel. And it’s something that many of us were concerned about, because so many of those Israeli students, who then come to the Columbia campus, are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus. And it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past.
In December, during a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik[12][14][15] quoted Franke as saying that 'all Israeli students who have served in the IDF are dangerous and shouldn't be on campus'.[12][14][16][17] Stefanik sources conceded that the Congresswoman had paraphrased a source which had paraphrased another source.[14]
Following this, Franke received violent threats[14][17] and claimed people, posing as students, enrolled in her classes to provoke discussions and secretly videotaped her.
In November, an external review concluded that Franke had violated university policies[12] and, in January 2025, Franke announced her retirement from Columbia.[12] Her firing was criticised by activists, academics, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese.[16][18]
