Campus Watch September 12, 2024

Brown Trustee Resigns Over Upcoming Israel Divestment Vote

Hedge fund manager Joseph Edelman announced on Sept. 8 that he is resigning from his position as a member of the Brown University’s board of trustees over the university’s upcoming vote on if the Brown Corporation should divest from companies that conduct business with Israel. 

“I am concerned about what Brown’s willingness to hold such a vote suggests about the university’s attitude toward rising antisemitism on campus and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel,” Edelman wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, adding that the decision to hold the vote “was made not based on facts or values but based on weakness toward student activists. The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules, and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.  I am unwilling to lend my name or give my time to a body that lacks basic moral judgment.”

University spokesperson Brian Clark told Bloomberg that Edelman’s op-ed is a “fundamental misunderstanding of the decisions that led to the upcoming vote on divestment. Far from a direct response to current activism, Brown is following an established process that is nearly a half-century old. This long-held process is built on the principle that Brown has an obligation to examine and investigate claims challenging its moral responsibility.”

Rutgers RAs Walk Out of Antisemitism Training

Myriad residential advisors (RAs) at Rutgers University walked out of a virtual training program on antisemitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia over objections to portions of the session on antisemitism.

The Algemeiner, citing reporting from The Daily Targum student newspaper, reported that the RAs “abruptly left the virtual session after a Jewish speaker explained that Hamas’s antisemitism and desire to destroy the world’s only Jewish state precipitated the Oct. 7 massacre.” The RAs who walked out also took umbrage to the session citing the definition of antisemitism used by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter (SJP) subsequently posted on Instagram that the RAs who walked out viewed the session as promulgating “Zionism, racism, and white supremacy” and that an RA didn’t like that “one of the facilitators even identified as ‘Israeli’ and made mention of this multiple times. He justified his authority on the topic by citing his 12 plus years spent in ’48 Palestine, going so far as to call ‘Israel’ [sic] a ‘beautiful land.’”

The university told The Algemeiner, “Several RAs left the session within the first few minutes and returned shortly afterward. Following the session, RAs and university staff discussed and reflected on the training content.”

UMich Black Student Union Leaves Anti-Israel Coalition Because “Black Identities… Are Not Valued in this Coalition”

The University of Michigan’s Black Student Union (BSU) announced in a Sept. 6 statement that they are leaving the anti-Israel TAHRIR Coalition because, in their view, it seems like the coalition doesn’t value Black voices.

The TAHRIR Coalition is “a group of more than 90 pro-Palestine student organizations,” according to The Michigan Daily. The BSU chapter statement said that while they “support and allyship with the people of Palestine, and our advocacy for a free Palestine remains unshakeable… it has become increasingly apparent that Black identities, voices, and bodies are not valued in this coalition, and thus, we must remove ourselves. Members of our organization and our community have dedicated their time, energy, and well-being to the continued existence and strength of the coalition — despite repeated instances of being erased, belittled, and berated.”

Two Harvard Profs Announce Formation of “Harvard Faculty for Israel” Group

Two professors at Harvard University announced that they have formed a “Harvard Faculty for Israel” group.

Harvard Law School Professor Jesse Fried and Harvard Medical School Genetics and Medicine Professor Matthew Meyerson wrote in a Sept. 5 op-ed in The Harvard Crimson that “at Harvard, students have disrupted an Israeli professor’s lecture, an undergraduate has reported that a professor forced her to leave a classroom after she said she was Israeli, and an outside law firm engaged by Harvard found that another instructor discriminated against Israeli students on the basis of their national origin and Jewish ethnicity. In conversations, Israeli students have told us that they are routinely excluded from student organizations and social activities, and that some of their peers literally turn their backs on them. The message is clear: Zionists are not welcome.” Fried and Meyerson added that the university “bends over backwards to prevent individuals of any other religion or nationality from being singled out for harassment, discrimination, and shunning. The University should similarly have zero tolerance when the victims are Israeli or Jewish.” They concluded the op-ed by stating that they “remember a Harvard where Jews and Israelis were warmly welcomed, just like everyone else. It can be that way again.”