Hundreds of University of Pennsylvania alumni sent a letter to the Ivy League school’s interim president, Larry Jameson, Tuesday demanding eight professors be punished for spewing antisemitic “hate speech.”
The collective demanded each of the eight instructors – labeled in the 22-page memo as “the Professors” — be individually investigated for allegedly engaging with anti-Israel sentiment in the months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
Nearly all the professors allegedly left a digital paper trail for either support for Hamas-adjacent rhetoric or commendation of Israel amid the ongoing war in the Middle East, the signatories claimed.
Some of the professors also participated in physical rallies at the school, the alumni alleged.
Hundreds of University of Pennsylvania alumni sent a letter to the Ivy League school’s interim president Wednesday demanding eight professors be punished for spewing antisemitic “hate speech.” University of Pennsylvania
Political science professor Anne Norton, for example, shared a string of controversial posts and retweets– including endorsing a post claiming Jewish people are best at “playing the victim.”
The widely-publicized debacle cost Norton her funding from big-name financial investor, Henry Jackson and his wife, Stacey, who had been sponsoring her through their President’s Distinguished Professorship since 2018.
When reached by The Post last month, Norton requested to see the alumni letter before commenting. She did not immediately respond to an attempt to follow up with a final draft of the missive on Tuesday.
Huda Fakhreddine, an Associate Professor of Arabic Literature, was also slammed for claiming on X “Israel is antisemitic, anti-human, anti-children, anti-life!” as well as comparing Gaza to a Nazi concentration camp.
English Professor Ania Loomba was dinged for participating in pro-Palestine rallies on campus, while Assistant Professor of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Mohammed Alghamdi was caught tearing down hostage posters.
Like Norton, Loomba – who is on leave for the Spring 2023 semester – requested to see the letter, but did not immediately return The Post’s follow-up on Tuesday.
Dwayne Booth, a lecturer at the Annenberg School of Communication, created and shared a series of comics protesting the counterattack in Gaza which were regarded by many as antisemitic.
One drawing depicted Israeli and American leaders drinking the blood of Gazans while looking at a dove carrying an olive branch in its mouth — a symbol of peace — asking “Who invited the antisemite?”
Outrage over Booth’s cartoons inspired interim president Jameson to issue a statement in February calling the cartoons “reprehensible,” but standing by the educator’s academic freedom.
“As a political cartoonist and having produced a great deal of scholarship on the function and history of satire and commentative art for 30+ years, I can say with every certainty that criticizing the State of Israel for its assault on Palestinians in Gaza in the work that I do outside the classroom is not ‘hate speech,’ though it may be upsetting to those who disagree with me,” Booth told The Post when asked about the alumni letter.
Graffiti has been daubed across Penn’s campus
“Additionally, having taught somewhere around 1,000 students over the last ten years…there has never been a single accusation made by any student, teaching assistant, or colleague with whom I’ve interacted to support such a baseless and inflammatory claim,” Booth added.
After viewing the alumni letter himself, Booth said the comments that alums took issue with were praised by “many thousands of readers… a great number of those readers being Jewish.”
Professor Fatemeh Shams – who was accused in the letter of saying “Israelites” deserved the Oct.7 terror attack, among other supposed violations – also dismissed the allegations as “unequivocally baseless and false” and said they constitute “nothing short of slander and libel.”
“Targeting professors for exercising their fundamental right to academic freedom through such letters and lawsuits exemplifies hate speech, racism, sexism, and Islamophobia,” Shams wrote.
“I wish our institution’s alumni redirected their resources and efforts toward safeguarding academic freedom, rather than perpetuating a culture of hate, censorship, and unwarranted scrutiny on educators committed to fostering independent and critical thought,” she added.
The alumni, however, clearly felt differently.
“Free speech is paramount, but there is a thin line separating it from hate speech,” the graduate signees insisted.
The former students addressed the letter to Dr. Jameson, who stepped in as interim president when Liz Magill resigned in December – days after she told a congressional panel calling for the genocide of Jewish students may not be hate speech and is “context-dependent.”
“True leadership, from the top all the way down, means being able to discern between the two and uphold the difference no matter the consequences. We have yet to see that at Penn,” the letter sent Tuesday stated.
The alumni alleged administrators have allowed faculty to violate the University’s Faculty Handbook as well as professional standards by fuel antisemitic rhetoric – all while defending alleged hate speech under the “free speech” umbrella.
The alumni requested “The Professors” be slapped with seven distinct punishments, including mandatory recording of their classes, their offices moved outside UPenn’s buildings and that they not be permitted any advising roles.
The alumni alleged administrators have allowed faculty to violate the University’s Faculty Handbook as well as professional standards by fuel antisemitic rhetoric. Peter Gerber
All the suggested punishments fall in line with what is listed within the faculty handbook, the alumni argued.
Last year, a disciplinary committee hit UPenn Carey Law Professor Amy Wax with a one-year suspension at half pay, the removal of her named chair and other punishments for years of alleged anti-black prejudice.
The censure Wax incurred for her statements – which included claiming she had never seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class – set a “clear precedent” for other professors to be similarly reprimanded, the alumni argued.
Wax requested a copy of the alumni letter before commenting last month. She did not immediately return The Post’s follow-up request on Tuesday.
The University of Pennsylvania also did not immediately return a request for comment regarding the letter.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/04/16/us-news/upenn-alumni-demand-eight-profs-be-punished-for-antisemitism/