UPenn Addresses Concerns Over Upcoming “Palestine Writes Literature Festival”
The University of Pennsylvania issued a statement on September 12 responding to concerns over the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus from September 22-24, which will feature speakers including former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters and academic Marc Lamont Hill.
The university said in the statement that the festival “is not organized by the University. As is routine in universities, individual faculty, departments and centers, and student organizations are engaged as sponsors, speakers and volunteers at this conference intended to highlight the importance and cultural impact of Palestinian writers and artists … While the Festival will feature more than 100 speakers, many have raised deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people.” The statement concluded, “we unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values. As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”
Rep. Gottheimer, Princeton Exchange Statements Over Anti-Israel Textbook
Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Princeton University had a public back-and-forth over the use of a virulently anti-Israel textbook in one of the university’s classes.
Gottheimer wrote in an open letter to the university of September 13 expressing concern over the book “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability” being required reading in a humanites course. The congressman argued that the book “the book veers into offensive, antisemitic blood libel” since it “argues that the Israel Defense Forces, in efforts to oppress and control Palestinians, deliberately creates injury, keeping Palestinian populations debilitated. This claim of Israeli control over Palestinians to maintain dominance is egregiously false. The author repeatedly casts the IDF and Israelis as the sole antagonist in a conflict defined by complexity and decades of strife.” He added that “deadly terrorist attacks from the West Bank and Gaza… have threatened Israel for decades … Princeton University must protect all students, including Jewish students made to feel unsafe by curricula that incites violence and signals tolerance for Jewish hate and anti-Israel rhetoric,” Gottheimer wrote. “Given New Jersey’s strict anti-BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] laws and Princeton’s own anti-discrimination policies, the University is not only reminded, but obligated, to safeguard its students.”
University President Christopher Eisgruber responded that same day to Gottheimer with a statement saying that “when faculty members teach a course within our curriculum, academic freedom protects their right to decide what texts they will assign and how best to cover the subject matter” and that “the principle of academic freedom sweeps broadly, encompassing even books that may be deemed offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong headed’ by students, faculty, the University administration, or others.”
ADL Report: Anti-Israel Activity on College Campuses Nearly Doubled This Year
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a new report on Wednesday finding that anti-Israel activity on American college campuses nearly doubled this past academic school year.
The report documented 665 anti-Israel incidents on American college campuses in 2022-23; the year before the ADL documented 359 incidents. Most of the anti-Israel incidents in 2022-23 were protests/actions (326), followed by events (303), harassment (24), vandalism (9) and resolutions supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (3). There were no anti-Israel incidents of physical assault. The previous academic year, these numbers were 165, 143, 19, 11, 20 and one, respectively. Among the incidents that the ADL documented in the 2022-23 academic year included “From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free” graffiti at UC Santa Barbara’s Chabad Center in May, anti-Israel activists disrupting former Israeli Knesset Member Michael Cotler-Wunsh’s speech on antisemitism in April and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters in Portland State University and Boston University sharing Instagram posts in February calling for Zionist teachers to be fired.
“Every year, young Jewish people go to college with the hope that their Jewish identities, including their connection to the Jewish state, will be welcome on campus,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “This sense of community is increasingly at risk as concerning anti-Israel incidents increase. University leaders must respond effectively to this hatred so that Jewish students feel safe.”
Swastika Found at Maine School Playground
A swastika was discovered on a slide at a Freeport, Maine school playground on September 12. The Times Record reported that the playground was located at the Morse Street School, which teaches students from pre-kindergarten through second grade. The Time Record described the swastika as being carved on the inside of the slide and was “the size of an outstretched hand.” It has since been removed.
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