AN EPIDEMIC OF JEW HATRED ON CAMPUS: THE TOP TEN NEO-NAZI INCIDENTS
Atrocities at Columbia, UCLA, U. Nevada-Reno and Stanford all made the list.
May 1, 2019
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Editor’s note: The following report documents horrifying instances of anti-Semitism on ten prestigious American campuses and exposes the pivotal role that the Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel plays in provoking these hate crimes. In a stealth campaign conducted on Monday, 1000 copies of a printed newspapercontaining this report were distributed to public locations on the UCLA campus, one of the schools named in the report. The newspapers also contained a poster highlighting the links between the BDS movement and Adolf Hitler’s “final solution.”
A fast and rapidly growing epidemic of global anti-Semitism is now threatening Jews worldwide. Many discount incidents of Jew hatred and neo-Nazi rhetoric as the actions of a fringe minority, or mistakenly believe it is a problem endemic to conservatism, rather than a facet of the radical Left. The blatantly anti-Semitic statements of recently elected congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and the leaders of the Women’s March—and the Democratic Party’s failure to strongly disclaim them—prove that Jew Hatred has become part of mainstream Leftist dogma.
Our nation’s campuses, dens of radical politics that they are, have long been a precursor to this wider epidemic. Now that Jew Hatred has become mainstream, neo-Nazi incidents on campus have only grown in their violence and magnitude, as the campus adherents of Adolf Hitler become increasingly emboldened by their success at infusing Jew hatred into the national conversation.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel is a key feature of the plot to destroy the Jewish state. Funded and promoted on American campuses by the anti-Israel terror groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the BDS movement has infiltrated our universities, funneling money to campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine through an intermediary organization, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Gilad Erdan recently declared, “The relationship between terrorist organizations and the BDS movement has never been closer, ideologically or operationally.”
The goals and means of the BDS movement show a direct parallel to the rhetoric and methods employed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Where Hitler denounced the Jews with slurs, and segregated them into ghettos before employing his “final solution,” the BDS movement similarly slanders the Jewish nation—the only liberal democracy in the Middle East—as an “apartheid state” which illegally “occupies” Palestinian land. Hitler used similar rhetoric to excise Jewish citizens of Germany from the larger community, claiming they were robbing Germany of the wealth that properly belonged to the Aryan race, and then codifying these principles in the Nuremberg Laws and other ordinances, encouraging Germans to boycott Jewish businesses, and forbidding Jews to intermarry with German citizens, or participate in virtually all forms of public life.
Just as Hitler’s reforms aimed to marginalize Germany’s Jews, the BDS movement seeks to isolate and delegitimize Israel, cut it off from the world community, and bankrupt its resources in the hopes of ultimately destroying it. The BDS campaign against Israel is a true and deserving successor to Hitler’s Nazi party. Yet university presidents and administrations have done little to check the rampant resurgence of this Nazi ideology on campus. And that failure has had grave consequences for Jewish students on American campuses who face the impossible choice of choosing to conceal their faith and their heritage or knowing they may become a target because of it.
It is no coincidence that five out of the ten universities featured in this report--UCLA, Tufts, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Michigan--have welcomed the Students for Justice in Palestine National Conference to their campuses. The remaining five campuses each boast active chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Students Association—a campus group linked to the Nazi-supporting Muslim Brotherhood network—or similarly-minded groups.
The ten incidents that follow—occurring over the past two years—represent only a small sampling of the egregious Jew hatred and lust for the return of the Nazi regime that now infects America’s college campuses.
Columbia University: Holocaust Scholar’s Office Defaced by Swastikas
Jewish professor and Holocaust scholar Elizabeth Midlarsky entered her office at Teacher’s College of Columbia University on Wednesday, November 28, 2018, to find two gigantic red swastikas scrawled on the walls and the anti-Semitic slur “YID” painted adjacent to them.
“I was in shock,” Midlarsky told the Columbia Daily Spectator. “I stopped for a moment, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
“I was in shock,” Midlarsky told the Columbia Daily Spectator. “I stopped for a moment, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
“I opened the outer door and almost passed out,” she described to CNN. “I was so shaky, I wasn't sure I was going to make it.”
Nor was this the first time Midlarsky’s office had been vandalized. In 2007, a swastika was painted on her office door and anti-Semitic flyers were found in her campus mailbox. As both a Jew and a scholar of the Holocaust, an event Jew haters are eager to minimize or deny outright, she apparently makes for a tantalizing target.
According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, Midlarsky “attributed this second incident to a broader national rise in anti-Semitic crimes and a changing culture.”
Teacher’s College President Thomas Bailey issued a statement saying:
“We unequivocally condemn any expression of hatred, which has no place in our society. We are outraged and horrified by this act of aggression and use of this vile anti-Semitic symbol against a valued member of our community. Please rest assured that we are working with police to discover the perpetrator of this hateful act.”
Columbia University, despite its location in New York City, home to a significant proportion of the nation’s Jewish population, has a longstanding reputation for tolerating anti-Semitism on campus. The university has frequently made the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s annual list of the “Top Ten Universities Most Friendly to Terrorists,” and hosted the Students for Justice in Palestine annual conference in 2011. After the Fall 2018 mass-shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Columbia administrators initially released a statement that made no explicit mention of “Jews” or “anti-Semitism”—a lapse widely derided by alumni and others. Despite the university’s statements promising to pursue the perpetrator of this horrific act of Jew hatred, it appears that no one has yet been arrested for the crime.
Duke University: Memorial to Pittsburgh Synagogue Victims Defaced with Swastika
At Duke University, a lovingly painted mural dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue mass-shooting in Pittsburgh presented too tempting a target to Jew-haters on the North Carolina campus.
At Duke University, a lovingly painted mural dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue mass-shooting in Pittsburgh presented too tempting a target to Jew-haters on the North Carolina campus.
The mural was painted in a “Free Expression” tunnel on campus where students are encouraged to express their opinions through writing and artwork. It contained a gold Star of David and the names of the 11 victims of the Pittsburgh attack alongside the epitaph, “We must build this world from love,” transcribed in both English and Hebrew.
Yet on Sunday, November 18, a large red swastika was discovered on the mural, painted over the Star of David. According to the Duke Chronicle, there had been something of an epidemic of swastikas on campus in recent months. The one desecrating the mural was the third to be discovered. Another was found on a bathroom door and the third was carved into a pumpkin on Halloween.
In a statement, Duke President Vincent Price called the painting of the swastika “a craven and cowardly act of vandalism – a desecration of a memorial to individuals who were killed because they were Jewish and practicing their faith” and added “That it should occur in such a visible, public location at Duke should be a matter of grave concern to us all.”
Duke University is home to a highly active chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine which hosts an annual “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campus featuring anti-Semitic slogans. These include, “To exist is to resist” and “From the river to the BC, Palestine will be free,” (the BC is a plaza on Duke’s campus) a take on the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call to destroy the totality of Israel as a Jewish state. Together with the Muslim Students Association, Duke SJP hosted notorious anti-Semite Linda Sarsour on April 15.
Penn State: Menorah Belonging to Jewish Fraternity Vandalized and Repeatedly Stolen
In two separate incidents in late November and early December of 2018, a nine-foot-tall menorah belonging to the Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau at Penn State University was first vandalized and stolen, briefly returned, and then stolen again, before finally being recovered in a nearby park. A fraternity member who attempted to thwart one of these attempts at theft was assaulted.
The menorah had been purchased by the fraternity earlier that year to commemorate the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue mass-shooting in Pittsburg. When it was returned after the first theft, two of its nine electronic branches were damaged.
“Due to recent events, that’s why we got the menorah... to show strength and unity with the Jewish community,” Penn State Zeta Beta Tau president Adam Schwartz told a local television station. “We just want to show that hate won’t stop us.”
Nor was this the only episode of menorah-snatching on the campus. The previous year, a twelve-foot-tall menorah was stolen from outside the house of Penn State Rabbi Hershy Gourarie and then was left in a damaged condition in front of the house of another Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu. Individuals were eventually arrested and charged in each incident of menorah-theft.
Penn State is home to a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter that has held multiple events supporting the BDS movement against Israel and demonizing the Jewish State. The campus is also home to a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Students Association.
University of California-Santa Cruz: Blocking the Hillel Table and Shouting Anti-Semitic Profanities
In May 2017, an event held at UC-Santa Cruz to celebrate Israeli Independence Day was violently disrupted by the African/Black Student Alliance (ABSA). ABSA deliberately blocked access to the Hillel table for more than an hour while protestors repeatedly hurled anti-Semitic and profane insults at the assembled Jewish students.
The event was billed as “Israel Palooza” and was meant to be a peaceful celebration of Israeli life and culture including music, dancing, and food. But ABSA swarmed the pro-Israel festival, cordoning off the Hillel table with protestors so that interested students could not reach it and on three separate occasions chanting, “Free Palestine” and “F—k Jewish Slugs.” An Israeli flag brought to the event by Hillel was also torn down by the protestors.
A statement released by Hillel declared courageously, “Our students feel disappointed that they were not able to celebrate Israel fully on her birthday but we will not be deterred… At Santa Cruz Hillel, Israel will always be at the core of our mission.”
In an open letter to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, a coalition of Jewish community leaders and UC-Santa Cruz students and alumni expressed their outrage that the University administration had neither provided sufficient security for the event, nor acknowledged the outrageous mistreatment of Jewish students on the campus:
“Despite the fact that the previous week Hillel Director Sarah Cohen Domont had informed UCSC administrators of the impending A/BSA protest and asked for assistance in ensuring that the Hillel event would not be disrupted, only one member of the university staff, Associate Vice Chancellor Jean Marie Scott, was present during the protest. No security was there to prevent the disruption or was called once it began,” states the letter.
It continues, “Even worse, it has been more than two weeks since these events took place, and your office has yet to say a single word even acknowledging, let alone condemning, this blatant suppression of Jewish and pro-Israel students’ freedom of expression and assembly. Nor have the students who perpetrated these acts been subject to disciplinary actions or held accountable for their reprehensible behavior. This is an outrage.”
University of California-Los Angeles: Vicious Disruption of Pro-Israel Event
On May 17, 2018, an event held at UCLA by the campus chapter of Students Supporting Israel was viciously disrupted by the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
On May 17, 2018, an event held at UCLA by the campus chapter of Students Supporting Israel was viciously disrupted by the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
The panel was titled, "Indigenous Peoples Unite” and featured speakers from several different nations. While one of the panelists was speaking about surviving genocide in Armenia, a protestor walked over and tore the Armenian flag off the wall and threw the speaker’s notes on the floor, while screaming directly in his face. SJP protestors used horns and whistles to create a chaos of noise and chanted slogans including "We don't want 2 states, we want '48," a genocidal statement to abolish Israel and return to a time before it existed. Other slogans shouted by the protestors included, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," "No peace on stolen land, justice is our demand" "Protesting is not a crime, free free free Palestine," and "Israel is a terrorist state!” Due to SJP’s protest, the event was forced to halt for over 15 minutes until calm could be regained.
UCLA administrators denounced the protest about a week later but claimed that they could not take action against the protestors because a police report had not been filed by SSI. After this announcement, over a dozen pro-Israel students filed complaints with the university police department.
Despite the horrific actions of SJP on campus in this incident and others, the UCLA administration nevertheless permitted SJP National to hold its infamous annual conference on the UCLA campus the following semester in November 2018. SJP National conferences are known to feature speakers who promote terrorist violence against Israel and the Hamas-funded BDS movement and instruct students in how to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events on campus. The announcement for the 2018 conference at UCLA even bragged about this disruption of pro-Israel events, stating "Other instances of our perseverance include disruptions of pro-war, Zionist, and racist guest speakers." It also demonized Israel by claiming that “Zionism is ethnic cleansing, destruction, mass expulsion, apartheid, and death.”
Stanford University—Resident Advisor Threatens Jews on Social Media
Students who are appointed as Resident Advisors are charged with keeping peace and order in campus dorms. It is a position of privilege and authority. But at Stanford University, the screening process appears to be lacking. Student Hamzeh Daoud was appointed a Resident Advisor in the summer of 2018 despite his numerous social media posts bashing Israel and threatening violence against Jews which were made public after his appointment was announced.
Students who are appointed as Resident Advisors are charged with keeping peace and order in campus dorms. It is a position of privilege and authority. But at Stanford University, the screening process appears to be lacking. Student Hamzeh Daoud was appointed a Resident Advisor in the summer of 2018 despite his numerous social media posts bashing Israel and threatening violence against Jews which were made public after his appointment was announced.
“I’m gonna physically fight Zionists on campus next year if someone comes at me with their ‘Israel is a democracy’ bullshit. And after I abolish your ass I’ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish your petty ass ethno-supremacist, settler-colonial state,” the Stanford student shared on social media.
One of his posts on Twitter states: "fuck your liberal Zionist ass. fuck your jewish state. and fuck the notion that makes you believe that the resoliance and beauty that embodies Judaism, jewish people, and the jewish religion is Israel. Israel is a state that needs to be dismantled. Any other opinion is complicity [sic]."
Another tweet explains, "For those who don't speak Arabic; this translate to God curse Israel. God Curse the shit out of Israel :)! [sic]."
Daoud is a member of the Stanford chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an organization that is financially linked to the terror group Hamas and which uses Hamas funds to disparage and delegitimize Israel.
Once Daoud’s anti-Semitic posts became public, the Stanford College Republicans called on the University to fire him from his position as Resident Advisor arguing that “Threatening to assault other students who hold a different point of view is anathema to a free society and any kind of education, let alone the operation of the premier research university in the world.”
“While we are disturbed by Hamzeh Daoud’s statements, we find it unsurprising that a member of SJP, an organization with financial ties to terrorist affiliates, would issue a call to violence against pro-Israel students,” the Stanford College Republicans wrote.
Meanwhile, after being publicly outed as a potentially violent anti-Semite, Daoud attempted to walk back his virulent social media posts, editing the one promising to “physically fight Zionists” to read “intellectually fight Zionists.” He also issued a statement of apology which reads, “I respect the Jewish community, the beauty and resilience of the Jewish religion and people, and the power that Jewish students bring to campus.” The supposed apology makes an interesting contrast to his previous tweet in which he used almost the same language to state precisely the opposite: “fuck the notion that makes you believe that the resoliance [sic] and beauty that embodies Judaism.”
Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford, an organization that supports the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish state, conducted an email campaign supporting Daoud and attempting to turn the blame back on the Stanford College Republicans, claiming that the conservative organization “intentionally misinterpreted [Daoud’s] post” and “triggered a right-wing and alt-right backlash against Daoud.”
A legal team also entered the fray, sending a letter to Stanford President Marc Tessier-Levigne on behalf of a Jewish student who preferred to remain anonymous, expressing the student’s concern that Daoud’s Jew-hatred makes him unfit to serve in a position of authority over other students.
“Daoud's public statements—including statements he has made that were public, but that he has recently hidden by deleting certain of his social media accounts—make clear that he is not capable of performing the duties of a Resident Assistant,” the letter states.
"Worse, if Stanford were to retain a person of Daoud's temperament in that position after being made aware of his statements, Stanford will have clearly discriminated against Zionist students on campus, in violation of federal law and its own formal policies," the letter continues.
Stanford pledged to investigate Daoud’s posts but this process was cut short when the SJP member elected to voluntarily resign from his resident advisor post. In a statement Daoud acknowledged “the language in my first post had a strong negative effect on many in our Stanford community.” While he may have apologized for the language he used, it seems likely that his actual opinions have not changed. And it remains far from clear whether Stanford—which hosted the SJP National Conference in 2013—is truly up for the task of tackling Jew hatred on campus.
University of Minnesota: Academic Department Supports Hamas-Funded BDS Movement
On March 2, 2018, the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota held an event dedicated to Hamas propaganda titled “BDS, Racial Justice, & Pinkwashing in the Trump Era.” The forum capped off “Divest Week” at the University, a week organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and supported by other campus organizations to promote the anti-Semitic, Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and to garner votes in a campus-wide referendum on the topic (the BDS resolution passed by a narrow margin).
The event description which was posted on the department’s Facebook page demonized Israel by accusing it of “daily human rights abuses” and made clear that attendees are expected to learn how to “work in solidarity with the global BDS movement.” The topic of the event, ‘pinkwashing,’ is a term used by Israel’s enemies to accuse Israel of using its support for gay rights as a shield to cover for other alleged abuses.
Further down on the official event page, a section of text titled “What is BDS” again demonizes and delegitimizes Israel. It states falsely that “Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.” It again promotes the BDS movement, stating, “BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
A large image of a pink banner with the words “No to Pinkwashing. No to Israeli Apartheid” accompanies this text.
The Amcha Initiative, an organization dedicated to tracking anti-Semitism on campus, revealed that “The official GWSS department Facebook page additionally promoted the event by posting a demonizing image to the event page's wall about Pinkwashing that also contained the image of a poster saying ‘Israel Out of Palestine’ as well as an image saying, ‘No Pride in Zionism, Israeli Apartheid, Occupation. Justice for Palestine.’”
This rampant support for the anti-Semitic and genocidal BDS movement on the part of an official university academic department is a flagrant violation of the proper role of an academic institution and reveals the depths of Jew hatred on the University of Minnesota campus.
University of Nevada-Reno: Campus Dorm Defaced with Swastika, Plea to “Kill all Jews”
A message threatening the lives of Jews was found on the wall of a campus residence hall at the University of Nevada-Reno in March, 2019. The highly disturbing message contained a swastika and the threats “Kill all Jews” and “Watch Out Communist Bombing on March 6, 2019, and March 7, 2019.”
University of Nevada-Reno: Campus Dorm Defaced with Swastika, Plea to “Kill all Jews”
A message threatening the lives of Jews was found on the wall of a campus residence hall at the University of Nevada-Reno in March, 2019. The highly disturbing message contained a swastika and the threats “Kill all Jews” and “Watch Out Communist Bombing on March 6, 2019, and March 7, 2019.”
Former student Matthew Levin who lived in the University residence hall called the threat “Unacceptable.”
“This was found at Juniper Hall on the campus I called home (and in a way still call home) for 5 years,” he explained. “Never in my life did I think that this was going to happen on our campus that has always been so supportive of all students. The students, faculty, alumni, and community deserve better than this. The Wolf Pack should not and will not stand for this.”
An email signed by several university administrators promised an investigation and further action: “This symbol and the threatening remarks that accompanied it are unacceptable and wrong,” it stated. “We strongly condemn any symbols and actions that represent hate, intimidation or terror. We stand with members of our Jewish community and all people who find such hateful symbols and abhorrent threats to be offensive, and we will work with a number of groups to ensure that our campus remains safe and welcoming.”
The death threat scrawled on Juniper Hall was not the first incidence of Jew hatred expressed in a campus residence. Earlier that same academic year, on October 27, 2018, the very same date on which a gunman massacred individuals at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh—a swastika was found carved into the dorm room door of two Jewish roommates. The Jewish students had recently hung a mezuzah (a small box containing a Jewish prayer) on their door frame.
Still more swastikas were found painted on a creative expression wall within the campus arts building in October 2017. Despite rhetoric promising to stamp out anti-Semitism on campus, administrators at UNR clearly have an uphill battle ahead.
Tufts: Hillel Center Targeted with Anti-Semitic Posters Featuring Militarized Pigs
On February 12, 2019, the Granhoff Family Hillel Center at Tufts University was papered with several dozen flyers featuring garish cartoons of pigs in military uniforms. Just in case the intent of the vandalism was unclear, some of the flyers were captioned with anti-Semitic text reading “DESTROY ISRAELI APARTHEID FORCES AND AMERIKKKAN [sic] PIGS WHICH FUND IT.” Another flyer featured the image of a pig wearing a uniform patterned in stars and stripes and captioned “U.S. Imperialism.” In the cartoon, the pig is shoved back against a spiked wall by guns labeled “Get out of the ghetto,” “Get out of Latin America,” “Get out of Africa,” and “Get out of Asia.”
The flyers were discovered by Hillel’s executive director and the Tufts’ Jewish chaplain, Rabbi Naftali Brawer. He contacted campus police and immediately removed the flyers from the building with the assistance of Hillel staff. “We were clearly targeted as a Jewish center,” Brawer said. The Hillel Center appears to be the sole target of the vandals—the flyers were not hung anywhere else on campus.
One particularly unsettling aspect of the incident is that a number of the flyers were placed so that the printed portion faced inside through the Hillel Center’s windows, as if to communicate their hatred directly to those within the facility.
The defacement of Tufts Hillel notably occurred only days after radical freshman congresswoman, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) tweeted that Congressional support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins”—a remark that led to widespread outrage and discussions about the growing acceptability of anti-Semitism on the Left.
In an interview with The Tufts Daily, Rabbi Brawer addressed the impact that the flyers had on Jewish students at Tufts: “It’s been a really unsettling experience for everyone here at Hillel. It shows us that bigotry and hatred are sadly alive and well, even on a university campus.”
Tufts University President Anthony Monaco did not immediately label the posters anti-Semitic—he later claimed to be unaware of the caption referencing Israel—but he did send out a campuswide email calling them “profoundly disturbing and hurtful to those targeted and to others in our community.”
Tufts has been featured on several of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s past lists of the Top Ten Universities Who Support Terror. While under President Monaco’s leadership, Tufts University hosted the SJP National Conference in 2014, an infamous event which bars media and outsiders and features supporters of anti-Israel terrorism as speakers.
University of Michigan: Two Faculty Members Refuse to Write Letters of Recommendation for Students to Study in Israel
In the Fall of 2018, not one but two instructors at the University of Michigan, one of the premier public universities in the nation, refused to write letters of recommendation for students planning to study abroad in Israel in deference to an academic boycott of Israeli universities which is part of the genocidal BDS movement.
One of those refusing the request was graduate student and teaching assistant Lucy Peterson. When student Jake Seckler asked her for a recommendation to study abroad, she declared that she would be “delighted.” But upon learning that he was planning to enroll at Tel Aviv University, Peterson had an abrupt change of heart. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t ask before agreeing to write your recommendation letter, but I regrettably will not be able to write on your behalf. Along with numerous other academics in the U.S. and elsewhere, I have pledged myself to a boycott of Israeli institutions as a way of showing solidarity with Palestine,” she explained.
The previous month, another Michigan instructor, this one an associate professor of American Culture, John Cheney-Lippold, also rejected a student’s request for a letter supporting his application to study abroad in Israel, again citing his support for the academic boycott against Israel. Screenshots of Cheney-Lippold’s communication with the student, identified only as “Abigail,” reveal that his conflict is exclusively with the nation of Israel, not with recommending the student’s academic work. “As you may know, many university departments have pledged an academic boycott against Israel in support of Palestinians living in Palestine. This boycott includes writing letters of recommendation for students planning to study there," Cheney-Lippold wrote to Abigail.
"I should have let you know earlier, and for that I apologize. But for reasons of these politics, I must rescind my offer to write your letter," he added.
"I should have let you know earlier, and for that I apologize. But for reasons of these politics, I must rescind my offer to write your letter," he added.
"Let me know if you need me to write other letters for you, as I'd be happy.”
In a later interview with the publication Inside Higher Ed, Cheney-Lippold asserted, “I firmly stand by the decision because I stand against inequality, I stand against oppression and occupation, I stand against apartheid and I use that word very, very seriously.” He added, “I have extraordinary political and ethical conflict lending my name to helping that student go to that place [Israel].”
The U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel is part of the anti-Semitic BDS movement, an attempt to isolate, delegitimize, and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. The BDS movement is promoted and funded on American campuses by the anti-Israel terror groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Michigan President Mark Schlissel and Provost Martin Philbert released a statement criticizing the conduct of the two faculty members without mentioning names or details. “Withholding letters of recommendation based on personal views does not meet our university’s expectations for supporting the academic aspirations of our students,” the statement read. “Conduct that violates this expectation and harms students will not be tolerated and will be addressed with serious consequences. Such actions interfere with our students’ opportunities, violate their academic freedom and betray our university’s educational mission.”
According to the Detroit News, Chenney-Lippold has faced disciplinary consequences for his refusal, including the denial of a merit pay raise and the postponement of an upcoming sabbatical. It is unclear if instructor Peterson has also faced consequences.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), released a statement calling on “the University of Michigan to adopt a formal policy ensuring students' academic pursuits are not stymied by the political views of their professors.”
“Boycotts such as these, refusing to recommend a worthy student solely because she intended to study in Israel, have a chilling effect on Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus, who may feel isolated and vulnerable when authority figures or campus groups express hostility or shun them based on their views and associations…” continued the statement. “Singling out Israel alone among all the nations of the world as worthy of boycott, according to the State Department working definition, potentially crosses the line from criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism.”
The University of Michigan is home to a highly active chapter of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality(SAFE), an SJP surrogate group which holds events supporting the BDS movement. Michigan also hosted the SJP National conference in 2012.
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