Columbia-Barnard rabbi to Jewish students: ‘Return home as soon as possible and remain home’

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/columbia-barnard-rabbi-to-jewish-students-return-home-as-soon-as-possible-and-remain-home; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Jewish students, like everyone else attending a university today, have paid their tuition fees and should have the same rights as all students. Or at least that’s the way it works in a functioning free society. But not anymore in Joe Biden’s America, where the rights of Jewish students are no longer being respected.

At Columbia University, pro-Hamas thugs have taken over:

Read more HERE.

Never again is happening all over again, as antisemites condemn Israel for defending its citizens and its state from obliteration, as any nation would do under similar circumstances.

Meanwhile, in a Passover message, the two-faced Joe Biden, who has been enabling Israel’s enemies, discussed October  7 and rising Jew-hatred, all while he sanctioned an IDF battalion and has called for Israel to lay down its weapons as it is attacked by Hamas and Iran.

“Columbia-Barnard rabbi tells Jewish students to stay home for safety,” by David Isaac, JNS, April 22, 2024:

Rabbi Elie Buechler, who co-directs the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) for Columbia University and Barnard College, told Jewish students on Sunday to stay home until the campus environment improves.

“What we are witnessing in and around campus is tragic. "The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD [New York City Police Department] cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” the rabbi wrote to a group of 290-plus students on the WhatsApp messaging app.

“It deeply pains me to say that I strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” he wrote…..

Yale: Police storm campus with riot gear, arrest students at pro-Hamas protest encampment

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/yale-police-storm-campus-with-riot-gear-arrest-students-at-pro-hamas-protest-encampment; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

“Yale does not tolerate actions, including remarks, that threaten, harass, or intimidate members of the university’s Jewish, Muslim, and other communities.”

No one is harassing, threatening or intimidating Muslim students; nor should they. But the university administration has to add “Muslim” in so as to try to avoid charges of “Islamophobia.”

“Police storm Yale University’s campus with riot gear and arrest students as hundreds stage anti-Israel protest,” by Emily Crane, New York Post, April 22, 2024:

Police clad in riot gear swarmed Yale University’s Connecticut campus early Monday and began arresting students who had been staging an anti-Israel protest encampment there for several days.

Footage posted online showed cops arriving at the Ivy League school and blocking off entrances to a plaza on the New Haven campus, where roughly 200 protesters had been gathered….

As police descended on the campus, a group of defiant students had locked arms around a flagpole and were singing “We shall not be moved” — as officers could be seen checking the dozens of tents erected in the plaza, according to a video posted on X.

While the arrests were underway, others could be heard taunting the Yale Police Department [sic] (YPD), “YPD or KKK, IDF they’re all the same” and chanting, “Arab blood is not cheap, for the martyrs we will speak.”…

“Yale does not tolerate actions, including remarks, that threaten, harass, or intimidate members of the university’s Jewish, Muslim, and other communities….

Columbia University Descends Into Pure Racist Hatred

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/columbia-university-descends-into-pure-racist-hatred; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Details on Columbia University’s descent into pure racist hatred can be found here: “‘Burn Tel Aviv to the ground: Calls for violence continue at Columbia,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2024:

In another Instagram video, in which a poster of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine secretary-general Ahmad Sa’adat can be seen in the background, anti-Israel activists sang, “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv.”

These students on Instagram display a PFLP official on a poster in the background, while they sing about a different terror group, Hamas, calling on its operatives to engage in a genocidal attack on Tel Aviv: “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv.” Either they couldn’t find a Hamas poster to use or, more likely, they can’t tell the difference between Hamas and the PFLP.

As the counter-protesters returned to their dormitories, Students Supporting Israel Columbia video showed that they were taunted with calls of “Jews” and told to “go back to Poland.”

The word “Jew” is now considered, in the antisemitic atmosphere in which we now live, an insult. And note the constant insinuation that Jews in America don’t belong, that they must leave and “go back to Poland” or “go back to Europe.” Jews don’t belong here, and they don’t belong in “Palestine.” So let them go to some place in eastern Europe with their bagels and lox, and leave us, real Americans such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Professor Joseph Massad, alone. Oh, we almost forget — there is always the Jewish Republic of Birobidzhan, in the godforsaken middle of Siberia. It's just a place for Jews to settle and read their Talmud undisturbed.

A Jewish counter-protester tried to stop activists from setting an Israeli flag on fire, according to SSI. In another video, a Jewish student was splashed with water.

Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani, after her wedding, managed to enter the campus despite it being allegedly locked down. Kiswani led the crowd in a chant in a video published by Students for Justice in Palestinian Columbia, saying “There is only one solution, Intifada revolution.”

In a video published by Palestinian Youth Movement NYC, they chanted, “Zionism will fall, brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall” and called “US imperialists, number one terrorists".

Uptown 4 Palestine published videos of activists proclaiming in Arabic that “From the water to the water (a reference to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea), Palestine is Arab.” (The chant is an alternate version of the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”)

As of now, Zionism will not “fall.” Israel goes from strength to strength. The Start-Up nation continues to produce unicorns, as Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs make advances in cybersecurity, solar energy, electric batteries, anti-missile defense systems, medicines, medical equipment, and much more. Israelis have more companies listed on our Stock Exchange than any other foreign country except China. Jews from Europe are making aliyah in ever-increasing numbers, undeterred by the current violence Israel’s military is ranked as the fourth most powerful in the world, after those of the United States, Russia, and China, and ahead of the UK, France, and Germany. It has made startling advances in military hardware, including the anti-missile defense systems David’s Sling, Iron Dome and, to be introduced into service next year, Iron Beam, a laser-based system that will cost only $2 for each lethal laser hit. And despite having had to fight, in its young life, four wars for its very survival (in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 2023-24), and many smaller campaigns against terror groups, including the PLO, Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, and Hezbollah, Israel has been ranked as the “fourth happiest nation,” after three Scandinavian countries, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Quite a list of achievements for such a young, small country with hardly any natural resources, that is surrounded by enemies. What will bring the next 75 years bring?

Protesters at Columbia, UNC-Chapel Hill, Berkeley, Harvard, Rutgers and a hundred sundry other colleges, will yip and yap and issue their bloodcurdling threats about burning down Tel Aviv and removing Jews from America, but they have had no discernible effect except, one hopes, of getting themselves expelled from the schools that heretofore have coddled them. As for the IDF, it must now end the dismantling of Hamas by attacking its four last intact battalions in Rafah. Once that is accomplished, it must then proceed to destroy Hezbollah’s stockpiles of rockets and missiles in Lebanon. The last, and most important task, for the IDF is to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities so that there is no chance that Iran will be able to build a nuclear weapon. It’s a formidable To-Do List, but when has Israel ever failed at the tasks it sets itself?

Columbia U: Pro-Hamas Protesters Call for Killing of Jewish Students, Praise Jihad Murderers~The fruit of indoctrination that passes for education.

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/columbia-u-pro-hamas-protesters-call-for-killing-of-jewish-students-praise-jihad-murderers; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Order a copy of Robert Spencer’s forthcoming book, "Muhammad: A Critical Biographyby clicking here.]

This is the fruit of the hard-left indoctrination that passes for university education today.

…Two days after more than 100 students were arrested when the NYPD raided a tent encampment on the Ivy League campus, roughly 200 demonstrators were still going strong on Saturday, chanting, holding signs and waving Palestinian flags.

At least three people were arrested, the NYPD confirmed. Two were cuffed for disorderly conduct and a third was slapped with a summonses for a sound reproduction device.

“Up, up with liberation." Down, down with occupation,” they yelled through the locked campus gate on W. 115th and Broadway….

“We want justice, you say how?" "Stop arming Israel now!” another group chanted.

The students are demanding the university divest from Israel.

“We demand that Columbia sever academic ties with Israeli universities and we demand that Columbia stop censoring and intimidating students who are standing up and advocating for Palestinian liberation,” one student yelled through the gate to the crowd that had gathered on the other side outside of campus.

Over 100 students were arrested at Columbia University on Thursday night.

A line of police officers in riot helmets watched on. A handful of Israeli supporters stood across Broadway — including one who was doused with fake blood for engaging with pro-Palestinian students.

Avi Lichtschein, 37, of Manhattan was walking his dog when the group surrounded him and shouted, “We don’t want no Zionists here!”…

Another pro-Israel bystander, Ross Glick, 50, told The Post his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. The Upper East Side resident grew up in the Midwest during the first intifada but said “this is more concerning.”

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of innocent people dying in Gaza but to call it a genocide….What about the 6,000 Muslims that were gassed by Assad?” Glick said.

“If you don’t like it go to Gaza,” he said about the protesters.

The protesters, he said, don’t want a peaceful solution.

Students continued to occupy the lawn area at the Ivy League school on Saturday..

“You don’t hear them talk about peace or co-existence. [It’s] death to Israel,” he said….

Columbia University and Barnard College faculty slammed Thursday’s arrests and demanded that their records be expunged.

The American Association of University Professors at the sister schools issued a statement following a “mass emergency meeting” of faculty on Friday.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Administration’s suspension of students engaged in peaceful protest and their arrest by the New York City Police Department,” according to a statement provided to The Post.

They said Columbia has an “absolute obligation” to protect students’ freedom of speech….

Yeah, except the freedom of speech of those with whom they disagree. If these were Trump supporters or foes of jihad violence who were demonstrating, the American Association of University Professors would be silent, or cheering on their incarceration.

 

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Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 28 books, including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, and The Critical Qur’an. His latest book is Muhammad: A Critical Biography. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Greg Kelly on how Americans must not get distracted by the Trump trials, he calls out the Biden Administration for ongoing failures, he comments on recent anti-Israel protests on college campuses and more on NEWSMAX’s “Greg Kelly Reports”

Police Arrest Students At Yale University As Hundreds Stage Anti-Israel Protest

Police Arrest Students At Yale University As Hundreds Stage Anti-Israel Protest

FILE - New York City police in riot gear stand guard outside the Columbia University campus after clearing the campus of protesters, April 18, 2024, in New York. Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday, April 22, 2024 and police arrested several dozen protesters at Yale University as tensions on U.S. college campuses continue to grow over the war in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)
New York City police in riot gear stand guard outside the Columbia University campus after clearing the campus of protesters, April 18, 2024, in New York. Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday, April 22, 2024 and police arrested several dozen protesters at Yale University as tensions on U.S. college campuses continue to grow over the war in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)

OAN’s James Meyers
8:23 AM – Monday, April 22, 2024

Police clashed with students at Yale University’s Connecticut campus on Monday morning and began arresting students who had been staging an anti-Israel protest for several days. 

Video footage posted online showed police arriving and blocking off entrances to a plaza on the New Haven campus, where an estimated 200 protesters had been gathered. 

Cops told students that they would be arrested if they continued to protest and not leave, according to the Yale Daily News

Meanwhile, dozens of protesters were handcuffed for trespassing and taken away on Yale University shuttle buses. 

During the arrests, protesters could be heard yelling at the Yale Police Department (YPD), “YPD or KKK, IDF they’re all the same!” and chanting, “Arab blood is not cheap, for the martyrs we will speak!”

Authorities cleared the plaza and encampment of student protesters at around 8 a.m.

The latest campus clear-out comes after protests at Yale turned violent over the weekend when a Jewish student was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag on Saturday night. 

Sahar Tartak, editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, was covering the protest when she was suddenly swarmed by protesters. 

“There’s hundreds of people taunting me and waving the middle finger at me, and then this person waves a Palestinian flag in my face and jabs it in my eye,” Tartak told the New York Post.

“When I tried to yell and go after him, the protesters got in a line and stopped me.”

After the brutal incident, Yale president Peter Salovey responded by sending all students an email on Sunday night, saying that the university “will pursue disciplinary actions according to its policies” amid the ongoing demonstrations.

“Many of the students participating in the protests, including those conducting counterprotests, have done so peacefully. However, I am aware of reports of egregious behavior, such as intimidation and harassment, pushing those in crowds, removal of the plaza flag, and other harmful acts,” he wrote.

“Yale does not tolerate actions, including remarks, that threaten, harass, or intimidate members of the university’s Jewish, Muslim, and other communities."

“The Yale Police Department is investigating each report, and we will take action when appropriate, including making referrals for student discipline.”

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Columbia University: Pro-Hamas protesters call for the killing of Jewish students, praise jihad murderers

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/columbia-university-pro-hamas-protesters-call-for-the-killing-of-jewish-students-praise-jihad-murderers; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

This is the fruit of the hard-left indoctrination that passes for university education today.

They even set up a memorial area for *convicted PFLF, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad terrorists*!

These two people murdered Israeli civilians and guided suicide bombers

This will FOREVER be a stain on @Columbia University.

SHAFIK and SCHIZER – SHAME ON YOU pic.twitter.com/ne64TOZ2n2

— Shai Davidai (@ShaiDavidai) April 21, 2024

Here's another one of their leaders, praising the October 7th massacre ("the Al-Aqsa Flood") and lauding
Hamas terrorists who raped, tortured, murdered, and kidnapped thousdans of civlians as "the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian Freedom Fighters that will guide every… pic.twitter.com/OznpFA5YZQ

— Shai Davidai (@ShaiDavidai) April 21, 2024

This is happening at @Columbia right now.

A pro-Hamas protestor calling on the Al-Qasam brigade (the military wing of Hamas) to kill Jewish students.

If you are not enraged by this, you can GO FUCK YOURSELF. pic.twitter.com/sw98mjNQKj

— Shai Davidai (@ShaiDavidai) April 21, 2024

“Columbia University student demonstrator taken away on stretcher as anti-Israel protests rage on,” by Steven Vago and Patrick Reilly, New York Post, April 20, 2024:

…Two days after more than 100 students were arrested when the NYPD raided a tent encampment on the Ivy League campus, roughly 200 demonstrators were still going strong on Saturday, chanting, holding signs and waving Palestinian flags.

At least three people were arrested, the NYPD confirmed. Two were cuffed for disorderly conduct and a third was slapped with summonses for a sound reproduction device.

“Up, up with liberation." Down, down with occupation,” they yelled through the locked campus gate on W. 115th and Broadway….

“We want justice, you say how?" "Stop arming Israel now!” another group chanted.

The students are demanding the university divest from Israel.

“We demand that Columbia sever academic ties with Israeli universities and we demand that Columbia stop censoring and intimidating students who are standing up and advocating for Palestinian liberation,” one student yelled through the gate to the crowd that had gathered on the other side outside of campus.

Over 100 students were arrested at Columbia University on Thursday night.

A line of police officers in riot helmets watched on. A handful of Israeli supporters stood across Broadway — including one who was doused with fake blood for engaging with pro-Palestinian students.

Avi Lichtschein, 37, of Manhattan was walking his dog when the group surrounded him and shouted, “We don’t want no Zionists here!”…

Another pro-Israel bystander, Ross Glick, 50, told The Post his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. The Upper East Side resident grew up in the Midwest during the first intifada but said “this is more concerning.”

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of innocent people dying in Gaza but to call it a genocide….What about the 6,000 Muslims that were gassed by Assad?” Glick said.

“If you don’t like it go to Gaza,” he said about the protesters.

The protesters, he said, don’t want a peaceful solution.

Students continued to occupy the lawn area at the Ivy League school on Saturday..

“You don’t hear them talk about peace or co-existence. [It’s] death to Israel,” he said….

Columbia University and Barnard College faculty slammed Thursday’s arrests and demanded that their records be expunged.

The American Association of University Professors at the sister schools issued a statement following a “mass emergency meeting” of faculty on Friday.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Administration’s suspension of students engaged in peaceful protest and their arrest by the New York City Police Department,” according to a statement provided to The Post.

They said Columbia has an “absolute obligation” to protect students’ freedom of speech….

Yeah, except the freedom of speech of those with whom they disagree. If these were Trump supporters or foes of jihad violence who were demonstrating, the American Association of University Professors would be silent, or cheering on their incarceration.

Department of Education Reportedly Vows to Shut Down Largest Christian University in the U.S.~The Biden administration and the largest Christian university in the U.S., Grand Canyon University (GCU), are locked in a heated battle, reaching a fever pitch. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has reportedly vowed to shut down the university. Last year, the Department of Education accused GCU of misleading more than 7,500 students about the costs of its doctoral programs, resulting in students allegedly paying more due to undisclosed continuation course fees. Consequently, the department imposed a $37.7 million fine on the university. Then, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued GCU over similar allegations. GCU has staunchly challenged the accuracy of these allegations. Tanner DiBella, President of the American Council, joins OAN’s Alicia Summers.

Farrell: Hur report ‘opened the door’ for Judicial Watch access to Biden archives at University of Delaware

Director of Investigations at Judicial Watch Chris Farrell says Judicial Watch believes a report by special counsel Robert Hur has opened the door for the watchdog group to press forward with their lawsuit to gain access to documents at Joe Biden’s archives at the University of Delaware. One America's John Hines has more from Washington

Biden Cancels $6 Billion In Student Debt For 78,000 Public Service Workers

Biden Cancels $6B in Student Debt For 78,000 Public Service Workers

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 12: Student loan borrowers gather near The White House to tell President Biden to cancel student debt on May 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We, The 45 Million)
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 12: Student loan borrowers gather near the White House to tell President Biden to cancel student debt on May 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We, The 45 Million)

OAN’s James Meyers
11:10 AM -Thursday, March 21, 2024

SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/biden-cancels-6b-in-student-debt-for-78000-public-service-workers/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the White House had approved the cancellation of $6 billion in federal student debt for “thousands of public service workers.”

The 78,000 eligible public service workers include nurses, teachers, and firefighters, according to the White House.

“These public service workers have dedicated their careers to serving their communities, but because of past administrative failures, they never got the relief they were entitled to under the law,” Biden said in a statement touting the move.

“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden continued. “I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up.”

Meanwhile, as of June 2023, almost 43.4 million U.S. student loan recipients had $1.63 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the Federal Student Aid website. 

This comes after the Biden administration canceled almost $5 billion in debt for 74,000 public-sector borrowers. 

Overall, the White House has approved $144 billion in federal loan forgiveness for about 4 million borrowers in total, according to the Biden administration. 

Meanwhile, the White House will reportedly email close to 380,000 student loan borrowers to let them know they are on track to have their student debt canceled within two years. 

However, other former college students have expressed frustration regarding how their loans have not paid off while others have, accusing Biden of being choosy and unfair. 

“So… what? Biden’s just gonna cancel some people’s debt and not everyone’s? How is that fair? "It should be everyone or no one,” said one X (Twitter) user.

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

UNC-Chapel Hill: Professors Hail Hamas’ Oct. 7 ‘Resistance’

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/03/unc-chapel-hill-professors-hail-hamas-oct-7-resistance; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a handful of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas faculty members gathered to celebrate the acts of “resistance” by Hamas on October 7. A report on the anti-Israel meeting by one of those who attended can be found here: “The Anti-Israel Hate and Moral Bankruptcy at UNC Is Stunning,” by Peter Reitzes, Algemeiner, March 12, 2024:

Five days after the event, UNC Provost Christopher Clemens wrote a blistering letter of concern to UNC faculty that included Claudia Yaghoobi, Director of the UNC Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies, and Conghe Song, chair of the Department of Geography and Environment. They have been included since the two departments sponsored the Nov. 28 event.

Clemens wrote:

I will admit that I struggle to understand what the rhetoric in this event was supposed to accomplish….

One thing is clear: from the outside, the academy appears to be fostering a banal kind of evil.

In preparation for the meeting with Provost Clemens, Purifoy sent an email to Conghe and Sara Smith. Smith is a UNC professor of Geography who introduced the Nov. 28 panel:

I hope that today’s meeting will go as well as possible. I’ve attached a screenshot of Mark Davidson’s comments about the panel last Tuesday which might be helpful. He and Rania [Masri] approved of me sharing it with you.

Purifoy is hoping that the comments by the pastor, Mark Davidson, in which he praised the pro-Hamas event, will be enough to assuage Provost Clemens’ fury. But it won’t. Davidson is just as morally obtuse as the others who were in attendance, or even more so, because while many of them remained silent, Davidson was positively glowing over the event.

In the comments that Purifoy attached, Davidson wrote, “The inmate prison-break from the concentration camp [Gaza] in the early morning hours of October 7 was, from a Palestinian perspective … something to celebrate.” In this single sentence, Davidson compared Israel to the Nazis and celebrated Hamas….

So Gaza, according to Davidson, was akin to a “concentration camp.” The Israelis are the new Nazis. And the Palestinians are the new Jews, being tormented by the SS-men of the IDF. Or if Gaza is not a concentration camp, then it is at the very least a prison. And the 3,000 Hamas operatives who raped, tortured, and murdered Israelis on October 7 were engaged in a “prison break.” But was Gaza a prison? In the last few years, 150,000 Gazans have left the Strip and moved to other Arab countries or to Europe. Israel didn’t stop them. And Israel has even given work to 19,000 Gazans who entered the Jewish state every day to work — or did, until October 7. While working in Israel, those Gazans earned wages that were from three to ten times more than what they could earn in Gaza. concentration camp. What kind of a prison lets thousands of inmates out every day?

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The UNC Provost, Christopher Clemens, is not about to let such insidious praisers of mass rape, torture, and murder as Rania Masri be sponsored by teachers at his school, and heaped with praise for what she said, on his campus, with her grotesque comments about what a “beautiful day” October 7 had been. And no one in the audience took issue with her, none there deplored her sentiments. Clemens is clearly not about to let this matter drop. Danielle Purifoy, Ajamu Dillahunt, Claudia Yaqhoobi, Conghe Song, fasten your seatbelts. For all of you, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The campus justification of Hamas’ atrocities is a big problem. It’s all over the place. But at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and on every other campus where analogous incidents are unfolding, some faculty members, and some members of the administration, and some trustees and alumni, and even some students, have got to grab hold of this problem, and not let go.

Islamic scholar who endorses Hamas, Hizballah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad lands job at Columbia University

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/02/islamic-scholar-who-endorses-hamas-hizballah-and-palestinian-islamic-jihad-lands-job-at-columbia-university; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Yeah, this is like posting that water is wet. Mohamed Abdou will fit right in at Columbia, and won’t meet any professors there who don’t share his point of view, or who dare to say so if they really do dissent. What would be news would be if Columbia or any other university hired an opponent of jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women. But that would never happen in a million years.

“He Endorsed Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Then He Landed a Professorship at Columbia University.” By Jessica Costescu, Washington Free Beacon, February 27, 2024:

During a Jan. 5 interview with socialist podcast Revolutionary Left Radio, Islamic scholar Mohamed Abdou declared his support for Hamas and “the resistance.” The terror group’s “dedicated few,” he said admiringly, worked in “stealth mode” on Oct. 7 to defeat a “larger enemy” in Israel.

Just days later, on Jan. 16, Columbia University’s Middle East Institute extended a “warm welcome” to Abdou, the Ivy League school’s latest visiting professor in modern Arab studies.

As part of that role, Abdou teaches a weekly class on “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition,” where his students discuss “transnational feminist discourses” and “queer of color critiques.” The self-described “Muslim anarchist” has also emerged as a friend to Columbia’s anti-Israel community. In a Feb. 11 social media post, Abdou revealed that he organized a protest in which Columbia students interrupted a panel featuring Hillary Clinton. One demonstrator called the former secretary of state a “war criminal” who “will burn” before chanting, “Free, free Palestine.”…

Abdou offered a more explicit endorsement of Hamas four days after the terrorist group’s attack on Israel. “Yes, I’m with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad,” he wrote in an Oct. 11 Facebook post, which also lamented “false reports accusing Arabs and Muslims of decapitating the heads of children and being rapists.” Months later, Abdou’s assessment remained the same.

“I might be with Hamas and support the resistance, absolutely,” the Columbia professor told Revolutionary Left Radio in January. “Look what 1,500 did … they were organized and they worked in stealth mode and they divested.”

“And nobody expected that this was the direction that Hamas and the Hamas leadership, or at least the political leadership, was going to take,” Abdou continued. “But look what the dedicated few [did] … how much a small group have defeated a larger enemy.”

Neither Columbia nor Abdou responded to requests for comment. Abdou’s role as a visiting professor will keep the Islamic scholar on Columbia’s campus through the spring 2024 semester. Abdou on his website acknowledges that the campus sits “on the ancestral and traditional homelands of the Lenni-Lenape and Wappinger peoples.”

While Abdou has already worked to organize anti-Israel protests at Columbia, he encourages those who oppose the Jewish state to go further.

“DON’T just go to Pro-Palestinian rallies DON’T just post on social media,” he wrote in November. “ORGANIZE revolutionary alternatives to capitalism & the state ON THE LAND you live alongside BIPOC kin who share similar anti-imperialist & anti-settler-colonial ETHICAL-POLITICAL commitments as YOU.”

At Harvard, Another Case of Plagiarism

No Harvard student so guilty of plagiarism would be allowed to remain.

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/at-harvard-another-case-of-plagiarism; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:


There was Claudine Gay, the onetime Harvard President, who was a serial plagiarist, beginning with her dissertation and extending through seven of her eleven brief papers (she has no book), only one of which was peer-reviewed, that make up her scandalously small list of publications. Her extensive plagiarism was the main reason she was forced to resign her position. For reasons that remain unknown, she continues to be paid her her former presidential salary of $900,000; possibly those now in charge at Harvard wanted to keep her from accusing the university of “racism,” and letting her keep that preposterous salary was the best way to keep her quiet. More on Gay’s plagiarism can be found herehere and here.

There was Sherri Ann Charleston, the chief diversity officer at Harvard, who was discovered to have plagiarized extensively in her dissertation and handful of academic papers. So far she has managed to hold onto her job. I suspect Harvard administrators do not want to force the resignation of a second black woman found to be a serial plagiarist so soon after Gay’s demotion. More on Charleston’s plagiarism can be found here.

And now a third serial plagiarist in the Harvard administration has just been found. She is Shirley Greene, a Title IX coordinator affiliated with the Office for Gender Equity. According to the indefatigable Christopher Rufo, Greene claims to have worked to advance “Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” without any evidence of how she has been doing this, and once led a panel on “The Past, Present, and Future of Juneteenth” with the DEI department. Hmm. There doesn’t seem to be much there there. She has just been found to have plagiarized at least 40 passages in her dissertation. More on Shirley Greene, the latest — but almost certainly not the last — serial plagiarist to be uncovered at Harvard, can be found here: “Harvard’s Plagiarism Problem Multiplies,” by Christopher F. Rufo, City Journal, February 22, 2024:

…Now allegations have emerged that another Harvard DEI [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion] administrator, Shirley Greene, of Harvard Extension School, plagiarized more than 40 passages of her 2008 dissertation, “Converging Frameworks: Examining the Impact of Diversity-Related College Experiences on Racial/Ethnic Identity Development.” According to the Harvard directory, Greene is a Title IX coordinator affiliated with the Office for Gender Equity. She has worked to advance “Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” and hosted a panel on “The Past, Present, and Future of Juneteenth” in conjunction with the DEI department. (Harvard did not respond to an emailed request for comment.)…

In the most serious instance, Greene lifts directly from Janelle Lee Woo’s 2004 dissertation, “Chinese American Female Identity.” In two significant sections, Greene copied words, phrases, passages, and almost entire paragraphs verbatim, without proper attribution or quotation. She also copies most of an entire table on “Racial/Ethnic Identity Development Models,” a foundational concept in the paper, without acknowledging the source.

We can examine one representative paragraph that illustrates the brazen nature of this adaptation. In her paper, Woo writes:

Stage 2, White Identification (WI), is a direct consequence of the increase in significant contact between the individual and white society. This stage entails the sense of being different from other people and not belonging anywhere. The individual’s self-perception changes from neutral/positive to negative, and she begins to internalize the belief systems of white society. Consequently, the individual does not question what it means to be Asian American. The individual alienates herself from other Asian Americans, while simultaneously experiencing social alienation from her white peers. Only when the individual seeks to “acquire a political understanding of [her] social status” (Kim 1981: 138) does she enter into the next stage.

Here is Greene’s version, with the duplicated portions of Woo and Woo’s citations italicized:

White Identification (WI), is a direct consequence of the increase in significant contact between the individual and white society. Individuals in this stage have the sense of being different from other people and not belonging anywhere. Their self-perception changes from neutral/positive to negative and they begin to internalize the belief systems of white society. Consequently, the individual fails to question what it means to be Asian American and alienates themselves from other Asian Americans, while simultaneously experiencing social alienation from their white peers. In order to move to the next stage, the individual must acquire a political understanding of social status.

The complaint, which has been sent to Harvard’s research-integrity officials, features more than three dozen other examples of Greene allegedly lifting language from other scholars, without proper attribution or quotations….

What will Harvard do? Does it want to uphold its own rules on plagiarism or ignore them?

No Harvard student who was found to be guilty of as much plagiarism as Gay, Charleston, and Greene have been would be allowed to remain at the university. More than a month after her plagiarism was laid bare, why hasn’t Charleston been fired? And what will happen to Shirley Greene? Anything? Nothing?

Harvard Invites Pro-Hamas Speaker

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/02/harvard-invites-pro-hamas-speaker; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Former Harvard president Claudine Gay was recently pressured to resign after she failed to clearly state before a congressional committee that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s code of conduct, stating that it would “depend on the context.” Even more devastating to her continued tenure, she was found to be a serial plagiarist, with dozens of examples of unattributed quotes, beginning with lifted paragraphs in her doctoral dissertation and continuing in most of the ten thin papers — no books — that constitute her entirely scholarly output.

Now a congressional committee is looking into whether Harvard has done enough to protect Jewish students on campus. And several Jewish students have sued Harvard, claiming that it has not provided a “safe environment” for them and other Jewish students.

As if that were not enough, now a professor of Middle Eastern studies has invited an extreme anti-Zionist and open supporter of Hamas and its October 7 attack to speak at the Kennedy School. Robert Spencer wrote about this briefly here, and more on this unwise and offensive decision can be found here: “Harvard University Faces New Antisemitism Controversy with Invitation of Pro-Hamas Speaker,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, February 7, 2024:

Harvard University is enmeshed in another antisemitism controversy following reports that a Middle Eastern studies professor has invited Dalal Saeb Iriqat, an extreme anti-Zionist and alleged advocate of terrorism, to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

Ms. Iriqat is not an “alleged advocate of terrorism.” She has openly declared her support for Hamas, which many countries, including the United States, have designated as a terror group. There is no “alleged” about it.

According to The Harvard Crimson, Tarek E. Masoud, director of Harvard’s Middle East Initiative (MEI), invited Dalal Saeb Iriqat as a speaker for MEI’s “Middle East Dialogue Series,” a slate of interviews that will also include former government officials such as presidential adviser Jared Kushner and former Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister Salam Fayyad.

There will be invited speakers from both sides — such as Jared Kushner, advocating for Israel, and Salam Fayyad, the former PA prime minister, speaking for the Palestinians. That was never the problem. The gravament of the charge against inviting Iriqat is this: some speakers are beyond the pale, and should not be given a forum to spread their extreme views. In the case of Dalal Saab Iriqat, she is not merely an “advocate for the Palestinians,” but someone who praises Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 — that is, she does not find fault with, does not deplore but proudly lauds, those who beheaded babies, burned children alive, sliced off the breasts of women, gouged out the eyes and cut off the genitalia of men, murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children.

Iriqat, a Palestinian instructor employed by the Arab American University, located in the West Bank city of Jenin, is best known for defending Hamas’ murdering and raping of civilians during its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, an act she described on social media as “just a normal human struggle.”

In other posts, she said, “We will never forgive the Israeli right wing extreme government for making us take their children and elderly as hostages” and “The Israeli public needs to realize that their own government had caused all this bloodshed and they remain the ones responsible for this [escalation] and losses of civilian lives.”

No, the Israelis did not “make” the Palestinians seize 240 hostages — at least 50 of whom have so far died in Hamas captivity, almost certainly murdered by their captors. Nor did the Israelis cause “all this bloodshed” on October 7; it was the Hamas operatives who swooped down like wolves on the fold, to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder the helpless men, women, and children at the Re’im dance party and in the kibbutzim.

Masoud told The Harvard Crimson that he disagrees with Iriqat’s opinions but that nothing about him bringing her to campus was inappropriate.

“If you are going to engage with Palestinians, you’re going to have to engage with these ideas,” he told the paper. “My view is that we have to subject these ideas — and all the ideas that we encounter — to polite but rigorous inquiry.”

What exactly is the “idea” for which this invited speaker stands? Is the approval of genocide worthy of being called an “idea”? What kind of “polite inquiry” can there be with someone who approves of the atrocities on October 7, and claims that they are an understandable reaction to Israel’s longstanding “aggression”? What is Iriqat’s “idea” other than the desire for the complete destruction of the Jewish state, and the expulsion, or killing, of all of its Jewish inhabitants? Would Masoud be willing to invite an Israeli speaker who called for all of the Palestinians in Gaza to be pushed permanently into Egypt, and those in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank) similarly to be moved to Jordan? Would that be a speaker he would consider inviting? No, I didn’t think so.

Hamas patron Qatar has given over $5,600,000,000 to US universities since 2007

Harvard to feature speaker who blamed Israel for Hamas’ Oct. 7 jihad massacre

Israel's Reported 'Resettlement' Plan for Gaza Amounts to a Holocaust: Prof Dalal Iriqat, Ramallah

What it’s like to be a Palestinian in Israel—Prof Dalal Iriqat, Arab American University, Ramallah

 

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/02/harvard-to-feature-speaker-who-blamed-israel-for-hamas-oct-7-jihad-massacre; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

ALSO SEE: https://www.foxnews.com/media/harvard-to-host-palestinian-prof-who-blamed-israel-for-oct-7-called-attacks-normal-human-struggle

First, Harvard’s former president refused to say that calls for a new genocide of the Jews would violate campus rules. And now this. Clearly, Jew-hatred has become the norm at Harvard, and among the leftist intelligentsia in general.

“Harvard to host Palestinian prof who blamed Israel for Oct. 7, called attacks ‘normal human struggle,'” by Chris Pandolfo, Fox News, February 3, 2024:

Harvard University has invited a controversial Palestinian professor to speak who justified the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel as a “normal human struggle for freedom.”

Dr. Dalal Saeb Iriqat, a columnist and associate professor at the Arab American University Palestine, is scheduled to speak at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on March 7 for a seminar series called “Middle East Dialogues.”

The Belfer Center website describes the “Middle East Dialogues” seminars as “a series of frank, open, and probing encounters with vital and varied perspectives on the current conflict, its causes, and the prospects for peace and progress in the region.”

Iriqat is a controversial figure who has made statements downplaying the Hamas attack on Israel and blaming the Israeli government for the bloodshed on October 7, when 1,200 people were killed after Hamas terrorists infiltrated the country.

“Today is just a normal struggle 4 #Freedom,” Iriqat posted on X on Oct. 7, as Israelis near the border with Gaza cowered in their homes while terrorists went door-to-door butchering people.

In the face of criticism for her post, Iriqat doubled down and blamed Israel for the attacks the next day.

“We will never forgive the Israeli right wing extreme government for making us take their children and elderly as hostages,” she posted on "X."

“The Israeli public need to realize that their own government had caused all this bloodshed and they remain the ones responsible for this escalation and losses of civilian lives.”…

Sherri Ann Charleston, Diversity and Inclusion Head at Harvard, and Plagiarist

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/02/sherri-ann-charleston-diversity-and-inclusion-head-at-harvard-and-plagiarist#; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Did Sherri Ann Charleston really think she would get away with it? After the plagiarism scandal brought down her friend and protector Claudine Gay, she must have wondered if anyone would start to look into her own “scholarship.” And now the Washington Free Beacon, that samaritan organization, has done exactly that. Sherri Ann Charleston turns out to be even more of a plagiarist than Claudine Gay. Will Harvard do the right thing, and fire her for her violation of the most basic of academic norms, or brazen it out, and hope that eventually people will lose interest? What the academic world most needs now is a a dozen Journals of Plagiarism Research, that will investigate complaints made by those who claim their work has been plagiarized, and publish its findings, a sure way to terrify into silence would-be plagiarists incapable of doing their own work.

More on Sherri Ann Charleston, the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Harvard, can be found here: “Not Just Claudine Gay. Harvard’s Chief Diversity Officer Plagiarized and Claimed Credit for Husband’s Work, Complaint Alleges,” by Aaron Sibarium, Washington Free Beacon, January 30, 2024:

It’s not just Claudine Gay. Harvard University’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, appears to have plagiarized extensively in her academic work, lifting large portions of text without quotation marks and even taking credit for a study done by another scholar—her own husband—according to a complaint filed with the university on Monday and a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

The complaint makes 40 allegations of plagiarism that span the entirety of Charleston’s thin publication record. In her 2009 dissertation, submitted to the University of Michigan, Charleston quotes or paraphrases nearly a dozen scholars without proper attribution, the complaint alleges. And in her sole peer-reviewed journal article—coauthored with her husband, LaVar Charleston, in 2014—the couple recycle much of a 2012 study published by LaVar Charleston, the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, framing the old material as new research.

Through that sleight of hand, Sherri Ann Charleston effectively took credit for her husband’s work. The 2014 paper, which was also coauthored with Jerlando Jackson, now the dean of Michigan State University’s College of Education, and appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, has the same methods, findings, and description of survey subjects as the 2012 study, which involved interviews with black computer science students and was first published by the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education….

The school is also facing an ongoing congressional probe over its handling of antisemitism and its response to the plagiarism allegations against Gay, which Harvard initially sought to suppress with legal saber-rattling. Half of Gay’s published work contained plagiarized material, ranging from single sentences to entire paragraphs, with some of the most severe lifts coming in her dissertation. Though Gay stepped down as president on January 2, she remains a tenured faculty member drawing a $900,000 annual salary….

It is enraging that Gay continues to receive that huge presidential salary. No one has offered an explanation as to why that was done. Was it a bribe, to keep Gay from claiming some kind of “racism” was involved in her forced resignation? And how long will she continue to be paid such a grotesque and unmerited sum?

Charleston also lifted language from Louis Pérez, an historian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Alejandro de la Fuente, an historian at Harvard; and Ada Ferrer, an historian at New York University, among other scholars.

Charleston cites each source in a footnote but omits quotation marks around language copied verbatim. The omissions violate Harvard’s Guide to Using Sources, a document produced for incoming students, which states that quotation marks are required when “you copy language word for word.”…

The main difference between the papers is a long section in the 2014 article about “culturally responsive pedagogy theory,” which the authors say their findings support. Both articles are littered with the tropes of progressive scholarship, including a disclaimer about “positionality”—the authors assure readers that they reflected on their own “racial, gender, and socioeconomic status”—and a lament that computer science is a “White male-dominated field.”

Both also criticize the idea that “computing sciences is for nerds, only for White people, [and] only for geniuses.”

Such language is typical of the diversity initiatives Charleston oversees. Since 2020, her office has pumped out a stream of materials that bemoan the “weaponization of whiteness,” discuss the ins and outs of “white fragility,” and urge students to “call out” their peers for “harmful words.” One message, signed by Charleston herself, was titled “A Call to Dismantle Intersecting Oppressions.”

We must continue to work against systematic oppression in all its forms—racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and more,” she wrote….

How appropriately diverse and inclusive this Head of Diversity and Inclusivity turns out to be, save for whites, of course, whose mere being creates “systematic oppression in all its forms.”

But let’s not lose sight of the main problem: will Sherri Ann Charleston get away with her many examples of plagiarism? Will her recycling of her husband’s paper of 2012, presenting it as new research — which goes beyond plagiarism but, as Peter Wood says, constitutes academic fraud — be enough to sink her career at Harvard, or will Harvard itself insist on keeping her on, and becoming, even more than it has already, the laughingstock of the academic world?

President Johnson of Wellesley College Stands Her Ground Against Antisemitism

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/president-johnson-of-wellesley-college-stands-her-ground-against-antisemitism

While some university presidents have been unable to answer “Yes”” to the question “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your institution’s code of conduct?,” President Paula Johnson of Wellesley is made of sterner stuff. And she has just stood up to — denounced, in fact — the faculty bullies who want to make sure that the Wellesley campus remains safe for expressions of antisemitism. The story of this Daniel come to judgment can be found here: “Wellesley College President Denounces Extreme Anti-Zionist Rhetoric, Rebuffing School Faculty,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, December 18, 2023:

Wellesley College President Paula Johnson has pushed back on faculty pressuring her to condone certain anti-Israel rhetoric on campus, stating in an open letter that the Massachusetts school interprets “some” anti-Zionist speech as harmful to Jewish students.”

Johnson, who has served as college president since July 2016, made the declaration on Saturday in response to a faculty letter demanding that she go on record saying that no criticism of Israel or Zionism should be described as antisemitic.

The faculty “demands”? It sounds like the Soviet purge trials of the 1930s. Andrey Vyshinsky, Chief Prosecutor, “demanding” that the Old Bolsheviks such as Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev admit to their crimes before their inevitable execution.Paula Johnson, we the faculty of Wellesley College, DEMAND that you declare that ‘no criticism of Israel or Zionism should be described as antisemitic.'” Really? What about those who chant “from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which everyone understands to be a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, and its replacement by a twenty-third Arab state? Is denying the Jewish people, uniquely, the right to have a state of their own not antisemitic? What about the call for “Jews to the gas,” which has been heard at pro-Palestinian rallies in Europe? Gosh, sounds antisemitic to me. What about those who after October 7 have been telling us at rallies that they “stand with Hamas” and, keffiyeh-scarved, wave the flag of Palestine? Remember, they are expressing solidarity with, and support for, the terror group that sent 3,000 of its operatives surging into Israel on October 7, where they proceeded to behead babies, burned children alive, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered young girls, sliced off the breasts of women, gouged out the eyes and cut off the genitalia of men, murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children? Surely praise of Hamas, after what it did on October 7, must count as antisemitism. What do you say to that, faculty members of Wellesley, by Zoom or in solemn conclave assembled?

“I want to be clear that Wellesley will not make such a statement,” Johnson said. “Some anti-Israel and anti-Zionist speech can, in fact, create a hostile environment for many of our students.”

Thank god for the no-nonsense reply coming from President Paula Johnson, a Daniel come to judgment by the shores of Lake Waban. She said what all sensible people know: of course anti-Israel speech can be so hideous in its endorsement of Hamas killers, or in its call for the destruction of the tiny Jewish state, as to create a “hostile environment” for Jewish students and, come to think of it, for all students who have retained their moral sense.

Johnson added that the faculty members’ own statements in their letter, which accused Israel of committing a “genocidal assault on Gaza,” are part of the problem….

When those faculty members accuse Israel of a “genocidal assault,” they are doing two intolerable things. First, they are saying something that is idiotic. It was Hamas that committed the “genocidal assault,” wanting to murder Jews, any Jews of any age or condition, whom they came across in their rampage on October 7. Although the faculty members won’t admit it, the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties by warning those in or near buildings that are soon to be hit to get out, get away. The IDF does this through leafletting, messaging, telephoning, and the “knock on the roof” technique. When it wanted to warn Gazans to leave the north of the Strip because it would soon become a battlefield, the IDF dropped 1.5 million leaflets telling them to move south. It’s no wonder that Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan, has described the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.” Furthermore, the UN has said that since World War II, the average civilian-to-combatant ratio has been 9 to 1. The American and British armies have recently done better: in Iraq the ratio was 3 to 1, in Afghanistan between 3 and 5 to 1. But in Gaza, Israel has managed to keep the ratio down to an unheard-of civilian to combatant ratio of 10 to 7. This testifies to Israel’s success in minimizing civilian while Hamas tries always to maximize them. And as for the charge that Israel supports “genocide,” let’s remind the Wellesley faculty that in 1967, when Israel won Gaza by force of arms in the Six-Day war, the Strip’s population was 410,000. In 2005, when every last Israeli was removed from Gaza, the population of the Strip was 1.3 million. Does that sound like “genocide” to you?

The Wellesley faculty — that is, that portion of it that, filled with anti-Israel animus, that demanded that President Johnson declare that “no criticism of Israel is antisemitic” — has met a immovable and immutable object: Paula Johnson’s moral sense. They have been foiled by her clear-eyed answerand In their ranks, confusion worse confounded reigns.  That’s the consummation that was devoutly to be wished. May other university presidents go and do likewise.

At MIT, More Than 800 Alumni, Faculty, and Staff Take Issue with President Kornbluth

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/at-mit-more-than-800-alumni-faculty-and-staff-take-issue-with-president-kornbluth

President Sally Kornbluth of MIT, just like President Liz Magill of UPenn and President Claudine Gay of Harvard, fudged in her Congressional testimony, not clearly stating that calls for genocide were unacceptable on the MIT campus. All three claimed that “it would depend on the context,” whether such calls could be considered “bullying or harassment” and as such, punishable under their institution’s code of conduct. Both Gay and Magill later tried to mollify their critics by modifying their remarks. It did not work for Magill; she felt compelled to resign; Gay, despite a second, even deeper scandal, involving her newly-revealed extensive record of plagiarism, has been supported by the Harvard Corporation; no one wanted to fire “the first black president of Harvard.” Whether her quite visible protective shield will prevent her scandalous plagiarizing from sinking her in the end will be instructive to watch.

Meanwhile, President Kornbluth of MIT, the only one of the three who did not attempt subsequently to “clarify” her remarks before Congress in an attempt to mollify critics, has been similarly supported by the MIT Corporation. And judging by the alumni letter just made public, she has apparently done little on the MIT campus to deal with the rise in antisemitic rhetoric and harassment of Jewish students.

More than 800 people — most of them alumni, but also including faculty, staff, and parents of students — have signed the following letter, showing that many people — Jews and non-Jews — are most unhappy with how Kornbluth has dealt with antisemitism on the campus, and believe the MIT Corporation, in its vote of confidence, has chosen to overlook that record, treating her with kid gloves. More on this open letter, to which new signatories are being added every hour, can be found here: “An Open Letter From MIT Jewish Alumni and Allies on Campus Antisemitism,” MIT Jewish Alumni and MIT Allies, December 12, 2023:

Dear President Kornbluth, Provost Barnhart, Chancellor Nobles, and members of the MIT Corporation:

We are a growing group of MIT Jewish alumni and MIT allies writing to express our alarm over the Congressional testimony of President Kornbluth of December 5, 2023; the subsequent public relations fallout; and the continued failure of the MIT administration to address the growing antisemitism on MIT’s campus.

Calls for genocide of any group of people, including Jews, constitute bullying and harassment. Such calls originating from MIT’s campus should never be tolerated by the MIT administration and should instead be met with swift disciplinary consequences.

Yet, during the Congressional testimony of December 5, 2023, President Kornbluth implied that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MIT’s code of conduct, depending on context. Protecting violent antisemitic rhetoric on MIT’s campus, rather than Jewish victims of such rhetoric, sends a strong signal to the rest of the world that violent words of hate are acceptable, at least as they relate to the Jewish people. Understandably, President Kornbluth’s testimony was met with a public uproar….

A full list of signatories can be found here.

Will Kornbluth listen to this most modest and reasonable request of so many alumni? Or will she, buoyed by the Corporation’s vote of confidence in her, see no need to change her ways? Let us hope for the first, and fear for the second.

Congress Tightens Up Reporting Requirements on Foreign Funding of Universities

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/congress-tightens-up-reporting-requirements-on-foreign-funding-of-universities

The scandal of certain foreign governments funding programs at American universities that further the interests of their often unsavory regimes is at long last being addressed by Congress. The House has just passed a bill — which will soon be voted on in the Senate — to tighten the reporting requirements for major foreign gifts (above $250,000) and to require greater oversight by universities of the programs being funded. More on this legislation, which is sure to become law, can be found here: “U.S. House Approves Reporting on Foreign Funds to Universities; Includes Key MEF Priorities,” Middle East Forum, December 8, 2023:

American universities will no longer be able to count on a complacent federal bureaucracy and weak legislation to avoid disclosing foreign gifts and contracts, if a House vote two days ago becomes law.

The Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act – the DETERRENT Act (H.R. 5933) – passed the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday in a bipartisan vote of 246 to 170. Introduced by Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA) and co-sponsored by Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and 25 other members, the bill significantly strengthens key provision of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act.

For decades, many universities have ignored requirements to report foreign gifts or contracts of over $250,000. Legislation lacked the teeth to hold academe accountable, allowing parts of the education bureaucracy to ignore violations of the law. Even if universities complied, they did not need to disclose the purposes for which the funds would be used – a loophole that allowed foreign states such as Qatar and China quietly to fund potentially disreputable projects or individuals….

Particularly worrisome are the large sums provided by rich Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to fund a vast expansion of Middle Eastern Studies, and Islamic Studies Departments, providing for greater numbers of faculty with endowed chairs; these faculty members not surprisingly turn out to share the world views of the states that fund them, including their anti-Israel animus and deep sympathy for the “Palestinians.” Saudi Arabia, and individual Saudis, provide large sums not just to endow individual chairs, but also to set up entire centers for Islamic studies, whose members are not unbiased scholars, but promoters and defenders of Islam. One example is the infamous apologist for Islam, John Esposito, who was the founding director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown, which got its start with a $20 million gift from Prince Alwaleed himself. Qatar, which has supported Hamas for decades, including providing refuge for the leaders of its political wing, has funded chairs in Islamic law, as has Saudi Arabia. The amounts provided by Arab states to American universities has been staggering. Qatar has given American universities $4.3 billion over 35 years, between 1986 and 2021, according to a 2021 report by the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Dr. Mitchell Bard. By December 2023, that amount has risen above $4.5 billion. That buys a lot of goodwill in American universities, and a desire on the part of both faculty members and administrators to please such a funder, in the hope that such sums will continue to roll in from deep-pocketed Doha.

Overall, between 1986 and 2021, American colleges and universities received nearly $8.5 billion from all Arab sources.” That buys the Arabs many friends on campuses, which may help explain why universities have been so lax in policing the antisemitic and anti-Israel student groups that have convulsed so many schools in the last year, and especially after October 7, when the IDF entered Gaza to ensure that Hamas never again poses a military threat to Israel.

The public, the media, and the political class will now see just where all that Arab money is going to in our universities, and for what purposes. How much influence have the Arab states bought, in supporting programs on Middle Eastern Studies and on Islam, that furthers pro-Arab and anti-Israel views? How have faculty members been chosen for these programs? Is there a politically correct test that is being quietly imposed so that, for example, no one sympathetic to Israel will be hired by a Middle East Studies department? Are students taking courses in departments subsidized by Arab money being instructed, or indoctrinated? Thanks to the new requirements for universities to report all foreign money received, and how it will be spent, it will be much harder to hide from the government, and the public, what these vast sums from Arab governments and individuals are meant, and largely have managed until now, to accomplish.