He wasn’t PC enough for Princeton.
A vicious campaign to end the unblemished 10-year career of a popular but often politically incorrect Princeton teacher left him so despondent that he took his own life, brokenhearted pals said yesterday.
Spanish teacher Antonio Calvo, 45 — who stabbed himself to death in his Chelsea apartment on April 12 — believed at least two graduate students and another lecturer were behind a poisonous political maneuver that robbed him of a contract renewal, two friends told The Post.
The Spain native’s departure from Princeton meant he’d be required to leave the United States within one month because his visa was sponsored by the Ivy League university.
“He knew that something was happening,” one ex-colleague said. “He commented to a couple of friends that some people at the school were trying to ruin his reputation.”
Another pal said, “Those people didn’t want his contract renewed. The campaign was led by graduate students who teach Spanish who were essentially under Antonio’s supervision, and a lecturer also teaching there.”
At least two un-PC incidents were among complaints about Calvo during the review of his contract — although his department supported the renewal.
Calvo once raised his voice in a meeting with a female graduate student, who interpreted the confrontation as “aggressive behavior,” the pal said.
Another incident apparently involved a grad student whom Calvo chided, “You’re spending too much time touching your balls. Why don’t you go to work?”
“It was interpreted as sexual harassment, but it’s a common expression in Spanish,” the pal said.
“Some people saw him as politically incorrect, but it was just the way he was — his personality.”
There was no hearing for Calvo to respond to the complaints. He was escorted off campus on April 8, several colleagues said.
A university spokeswoman said Calvo was “on leave at the time of his death,” and declined to speak about “matters of personnel, which are not public.”
Just days after his ouster, Calvo sent a message to a close friend.
“The letter mentioned Princeton and was very strange, very weird, and his friend felt the need to go to [Calvo’s] apartment,” a pal said.
Calvo’s body was found with self-inflicted stab wounds.
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland