UMich DEI Official Fired Over Alleged Antisemitic Comments
Rachel Dawson has been fired from her position as director of the University of Michigan’s Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives following allegations that she made antisemitic remarks, her attorney told The New York Times.
Dawson is accused of telling two professors during a diversity conference in Philadelphia that her office doesn’t work with Jewish students because they’re “wealthy and privileged” and have no DNA connection to Israel; she is also accused of saying that “wealthy Jews” control the university. Dawson has denied making these remarks and her attorney, Amanda Ghannam, told the Times that they plan on suing the school over Dawson’s termination. A spokesperson for the university told the Times that the school cannot comment on personnel matters.
Anti-Israel Protester Punches Columbia Jewish Student
An anti-Israel protester punched a Jewish student at Columbia University in the face during a Dec. 9 protest just outside the university.
According to the New York Post, the student, 22-year-old Jonathan Lederer, showed up to the anti-Israel protest with his brother while holding an Israeli flag. Lederer told the Post that a mob of anti-Israel protesters surrounded him and accused him of being a Nazi and baby killer and that “Jews have no history in the land. You stole our land.” One of them took Lederer’s flag; when Lederer and his brother followed the protester and implored that he give them back their flag, the protester turned around and punched Lederer on the right side of his face, Lederer claimed.
A university spokesperson told the Post that it is investigating the incident and that the assailant doesn’t seem to be a student at the university. “We want to be absolutely clear that any act of violence against a member of our community is unacceptable,” the spokesperson said.
Columbia Prof Called PFLP Hijackings “Spectacular”
Columbia English Professor Joseph Slaughter, who is also a member of the university’s Committee on the Rules of University Conduct, referred to airplane hijackings by the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group as “spectacular” in an Oct. 9 lecture.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Slaughter’s lecture featured footage of a PFLP hijacking from the 1970s and that Slaughter called the footage “pretty spectacular.” “Nobody dies except one of the hijackers,” Slaughter said in the lecture. “What’s remarkable about the historical footage from this thing is the way that the PFLP hijackers are helping people off the airplane and taking them over to tables to eat. This is a national liberation imaginary that is just so different from the moment that we are living in.” However, the Free Beacon noted that “when terrorists seized one of the planes, hijacker Patrick Arguello attempted to detonate a grenade that failed to explode. He then shot a steward before an air marshal returned fire, killing him” and that the PFLP terrorists held 56 Jewish hostages “for weeks.”
Slaughter denied glorifying the hijackings, telling the Free Beacon that he was simply trying to “historicize the role that such violence (in the form of airline hijackings) played in transforming the international discourse of human rights in the 1970s.”
GMU SJP Suspended After Hamas, Hezbollah Flags Found in Leaders’ Home
George Mason University (GMU) suspended the campus Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter after a November police raid of the chapter leaders’ home found reportedly found Hamas and Hezbollah flags, firearms and ammunition and foreign passports.
According to the Free Beacon, what triggered the raid was police suspicions that Jenna and Noor Chanaa, who are sisters, led a group of students who vandalized the university’s student center with anti-Israel graffiti. The Free Beacon cited court documents in which police say they found “pro-terror material” that included the Hamas and Hezbollah flags, as well as signs stating “death to America” and “death to Jews.” Noor is the current co-president of the GMU SJP chapter and Jena was the prior chapter president. The chapter is current under an interim suspension and the Chanaa sisters are both barred from campus for four years.
Rice University Students Reject Anti-Israel Resolutions
Rice University students rejected three anti-Israel resolutions in a campuswide vote.
The Rice Thresher reported that the rejected resolutions called for the university to divest with companies that conduct business with Israel, issue a statement condemning Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and committing to support “anti-colonial scholarship.” The resolutions all failed to reach the two-thirds threshold of the student vote to pass, though each of them received a majority of the student vote. A resolution calling for the university to disclose its investments did pass.
