RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/article/congress-adds-mit-to-its-list-of-targets-in-investigation-into-antisemitism-at-elite-universities?

Et tu, MIT?

A House committee has already subpoenaed Harvard’s top leaders and demanded documentation from Columbia as part of an unprecedented inquiry into antisemitism at elite universities. Now, it’s throwing the spotlight at yet another top school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for its alleged failure to protect its Jewish students.

“We have grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of MIT’s response to antisemitism on campus,” the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said in a letter sent on Friday to MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, and the chairman of the school’s corporation, Mark Gorenberg. Since October 7, the school has been engulfed by anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests, which have taken up campus buildings, disrupted the educational experience, and targeted Jewish students. 

Ms. Kornbluth was the only one out of the three university presidents to remain in her post after they testified before the Committee in December on the issue of antisemitism. Amid national outcry over what many deemed a damning testimonial performance, Penn’s president, Liz Magill, resigned the next week. Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, lasted another month. 

Yet MIT’s board quickly expressed their “full and unreserved support” for Ms. Kornbluth in a statement endorsing her leadership. That show of support could come crumbling down at the hands of the committee, led by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.

She told the Sun she has made it her mission to hold elite universities accountable for surging antisemitism which she says is undermining their reputations for academic excellence — even if means suspending federal grant money.

https://www.nysun.com/article/harvard-in-a-dramatic-development-as-antisemitism-engulfs-the-university-asks-bay-state-taxpayers-for-a-bailout?

Should the state of Massachusetts issue up to $2 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help Harvard build a new building for its economics department, renovate dormitories, and modernize the medical school dean’s office?

That is the question the board of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency will consider in a teleconference scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on March 12, according to a hearing notice issued Monday.

That it’s even under consideration shows the pressure Harvard is under. When the university was in stronger shape, it relied on private donors to fund new buildings, or renovate old ones, voluntarily.

Now, with several large donors reportedly having cut ties to Harvard or “paused” giving because of concerns about Harvard’s maladroit response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, the university is increasingly turning to the lender of last resort, the government.

The notice makes it sound like Harvard is seeking to borrow money for at least some projects that are already well under way, a reversal of the standard sequence for financing construction. It mentions “renovation of the Adams House undergraduate housing project.” Yet the university announced in September 2023 “the completion of the second phase of Adams House renewal,” declaring that “the third and final phase…is currently underway.”

It also mentions “renovation of Gordon Hall, a Harvard Medical School administration building.” Yet the 2023 medical school dean’s report said, “construction has begun on transforming the Gordon Hall of Medicine, our signature campus building, into a flexible co-working space. This design will create a positive work community for our administrative units.”

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-universities/2024/03/academics-attend-to-their-jew-diligence/

Monash University lecturer Elliot Dolan-Evans, I’m pleased to report, is likely to have fewer enrolees in his courses next semester. The Herald Sun has highlighted the young academic’s recent social media activity, which, I suspect, is not part of any extracurricular load. On October 7, Dolan-Evans was joining in the general online giddiness regarding the success of Hamas’ pogrom, a revelation which has made Jewish students at Monash feel uncomfortable on campus, to put it mildly. The long-term reputational damage — fingers crossed — has now been done, and if Elliot Dolan-Evans has difficulty finding future students, we can certainly count that as a win.

Though I’m always pleased to see a public campaign of ridicule against our nation’s academics, fairness obliges me to note that Dolan-Evans’ social media transgressions are a bit tame, at least when set against those of some of his colleagues and co-thinkers. Sydney University professor of politics John Keane, for example, isn’t a mere liker of pro-terror posts; no, he takes the initiative and creates some of his own. On October 7, as the carnage got underway, Keane took to X to share an image of the green flags of Hamas. To be fair, he later attempted to clarify this post —which some might have found untimely — by haughtily denying he was a supporter of the terrorist organisation. He defended himself, for some reason, by writing that the flag was only used by Hamas’ military wing, and then he started banging on about its “sacred viridescence”, “polysemic” meanings, and some other academic wankery.

Keane’s University of Sydney colleague, linguistics lecturer Nick Riemer, on the other hand, is refreshingly forthright about his anti-Israel mania. “Resistance is the right of occupied people,” he declared, as the body count was rising at the Nova festival. “Unconditional solidarity with Gazans.” A little later, socialist student group Solidarity decided to bring at least the spirit of October 7 to the Sydney campus. The radicals began advertising an event called ‘Palestine: The Case for a Global Intifada’, with accompanying posters of Hamas bulldozers ripping through border fences. When the university cancelled the get-together on the reasonable assumption that it appeared to be terror-sympathetic, Riemer had one of his noisiest tantrums yet. Unembarrassed, he even openly published his letter to the vice-chancellor, where he whinged about this apparent affront to academic freedom.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/ucsb-black-studies-faculty-plan-day-of-interruption-to-protest-protections-for-jews/

The UC Santa Barbara Black Studies Department has organized a “day of interruption” for March 7 and subsequent “work slowdowns” to protest steps administrators recently took to support Jewish students and quell antisemitic protests on campus.

Campus leaders last week closed the Multicultural Center and suspended its social media accounts after pro-Palestinian students occupied the venue and hung a parade of antisemitic posters with statements such as “Zionists not allowed,” pictures posted on social media show.

Other signs included: “Get these Zionists out of office,” “Zionists not welcome,” “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” and “It was never about Hamas, never will be.”

The student government president (pictured), who is Jewish, was also called out and threatened by name. One sign said, “You can run but you can’t hide, Tessa Veksler supports genocide.”

Veksler, the daughter of refugees from the Soviet Union, has been an outspoken supporter of Zionism in her year as student president. In response, she said on Instagram “I am not afraid and I’m not going anywhere.”

Campus leaders temporarily closed the Multicultural Center in response, prompting outrage from Black Studies faculty, who released a statement a few days later calling for the “day of interruption.”

The professors called the MCC closure a “displacement” of students of color, and also cite proposed policies that would allow administrators to have editorial control of UCSB departmental websites, a proposal to allow police on campus for major events, and leaders’ refusal to condemn Israel.