Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) to “stop sponsoring events that normalize known antisemites” after the university announced that they would be reviewing their policies on outside groups hosting events on campus.
Torres was responding to a Tuesday article from The Philadelphia Inquirer stating that the university hasn’t provided any specifics about the policy review, other than that the university will still allow controversial speakers to come to campus and that the university will also be implementing antisemitism awareness training. The university’s announcement came after the Palestine Writes Literature Festival was hosted on their campus from September 22-24 featuring various speakers that have been criticized as being antisemitic.
“Stop sponsoring events that normalize known antisemites like Roger Waters who, only a few months ago, wore a Nazi uniform at a concert in Berlin,” Torres wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Torres is referencing Waters donning a Nazi-like uniform, an act that the former Pink Floyd frontman has claimed was a statement against fascism.
Torres added: “The appeasement of antisemitism on college campuses is a national scandal. Shame on all the college and university administrators who have chosen cowardice, silence, and expedience in the face of flagrant Jew-hatred. All of you should be held to account for your complicity.”
My message to the University of Pennsylvania.
Stop sponsoring events that normalize known antisemites like Roger Waters who, only a few months ago, wore a Nazi uniform at a concert in Berlin.
The appeasement of antisemitism on college campuses is a national scandal.
Shame… https://t.co/E0ySSSGqaI
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 4, 2023
The university did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.
UPenn Board of Trustees President Scott Bok told the Inquirer regarding the university’s policy review, “Neither our board nor university leadership want to be in the business of vetting and approving each of the few thousand of speakers who are invited by faculty or student groups to speak on our campus each year. That wouldn’t be appropriate. But our president has indicated that the university will look at some administrative processes to be better aware of who is coming to campus, particularly for large-scale events.”
The university has previously said in a statement that they acknowledge that “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. 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.”
During the weekend of the festival, Waters claimed he was banned from attending the event in person; however, the university claimed that they were under the impression that Waters was speaking via Zoom and that the request for him to speak in-person was too last minute.
Susan Abulhawa, the executive director of the festival, told the Inquirer that, in her view, the university’s response to the event was due “to racist pressures because that’s the side of power and donor money” and that the university didn’t provide “a single moment or statement of care for Penn’s Palestinian students who have been marginalized and maligned and subjected to violent propaganda year after year, and now during the festival through direct and specific incitement against them.” She has previously defended the speakers that the festival invited, arguing that none of them are antisemitic.
