There’s another BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) controversy brewing in Brooklyn, this time at the publicly-funded Brooklyn College. Brooklyn College’s political science department has decided to co-sponsor an anti-Israel BDS conference, despite growing outrage at the school and department’s tendency to sponsor events that only portray one side of the Mideast debate. Yesterday Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee at the City University of New York (the larger network that Brooklyn College is a member of) wrote a scathing op-ed about the conference in Algemeiner in which he admonished the school for its decision to go ahead with the program:
I call upon taxpayers to draw a line here and make it known: taxpayer dollars should not fund illegitimate, racist and anti-Semitic activities by any academic department. Those of us who care about Israel would do no less if others were similarly treated. Indeed, the Jewish community in particular historically has done no less. Additionally, academic administrators should be reminded that Jewish students are no less entitled – under applicable federal law – than other students to an educational environment free of intimidation and prejudice.
This afternoon Brooklyn College President Karen Gould released a statement explaining the school’s decision to carry on with the conference, despite the outrage of many members of the Jewish community in Brooklyn as well as the student body. Despite a long history of Jewish enrollment at Brooklyn College in addition to its current large population of Jewish students (30 percent of Brooklyn College’s population self-identified as Jewish in 2011), the school has become known as a hotbed of anti-Israel activity. A friend and former student, Dani Klein, told me,
Ten years ago as a student at Brooklyn College, I was the President of NYSIPAC, the Israel advocacy club on campus at the time. We held events frequently. Sometimes individual professors came to speak, or promoted it, but we never had any department sponsor our events, let alone the political science department. Similar, one-sided, anti-Israel events were held on campus back then too, some comparing Israel to Nazis. These same groups have changed their tactics. Instead of shock and awe, they promote BDS. But their goal is the same — the destruction of Israel.
In response to the controversy, Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind has called for President Gould’s resignation, releasing a statement earlier today:
Allowing her Poli-Sci Department Chair to bully her into letting them co-sponsor and support a racist, anti-Semitic lecture series is not the right thing. Or perhaps President Gould wasn’t bullied; maybe she secretly approves. Or perhaps she’s apathetic. I can only speculate to what her motivation or lack of motivation is in allowing this irresponsible endorsement of this loathsome event by her College.
Either way, President Gould should not be steering this ship. It is heading for a barge. She should give someone else the helm, someone who understands how to manage a situation like this and protect Brooklyn College’s entire student body. The chilling effect upon Brooklyn College students will have long-term ramifications. Tacit approval is approval. Karen Gould should resign.”
Tomorrow, at 11 A.M., Assemblyman Hikind will be joined by numerous elected officials and community groups who will condemn Brooklyn College’s official endorsement and sponsorship of the event “BDS Movement Against Israel” which calls for a unilateral boycott against Israel and Israeli businesses.
Despite President Gould’s insistence that the conference will go on as planned, pressure seems be mounting, not dissipating, for its cancellation. If the event goes as scheduled it will surely continue to stoke tension in the community, which appears to be the only thing that BDS events seem to accomplish.
"…Additionally, academic administrators should be reminded that Jewish students are no less entitled – under applicable federal law – than other students to an educational environment free of intimidation and prejudice. …" n nReally Mr. Wiesenfeld? nWhere were you??? when Jewish graduate students like me were being intimidated by Professors at Lehman College, CUNY's 4-year college in The Bronx when I mistakenly thought I could re-train myself at my own expense to teach Social Studies 2003-05, (not understanding that NYC does not want any more Jewish teachers in The Bronx because we are not the correct minority – they kept telling me I was too smart to be a teacher and I did not understand the code) n nJust move the BDS conference to LEHMAN College – I assure you there will NOT be ANY protests from the students, professors, administrators. Bet they want to change the name so that they do not have to be reminded that Herbert Lehman was the first (Jewish governor of New York State, 1933-1942) n nI never got to use that master's degree to teach. n
Ludicrous. It's a public forum. How is this intimidation? It's the Zionists who scream "intimidation" whenever Israel is criticized. What a funhouse world Zionists live in!
Grumpy_Old_Piece_Of-Sh-t. Have I got it right? You bet 'YES'.
Now that’s persuasive and a credit to your cause.
Your learned retort has left me gobsmacked. You are a credit to your cause.
Imagine yourself as a student pushed around by a crowd of screaming Jews wearing kippahs. You try to back out but they keep screaming at you, waving placards in your face, until you are backed against a wall. Then push changes to shove. n nWelcome to the wonderful world of BDS. Except of course the students are Jews and the truants are your friends in various colorful garb they chose as a fashion statement of their religious or tribal bona fides. n nThe second issue, which you are as usual too willfully blind to perceive, is that this is not a chance event, but a taxpayer and *student* funded event sponsored by the school itself, most particularly by its anti-Zionist "political science" (i.e, lib-lab pomo Marxist) faculty as a partisan, prejudiced, and one sided statement against Zionism, and against Jewish support of Zionism–not merely a one-off but a demonstrative claim by the pampered radical pot-pishers that the political science department will welcome no freedom of speech advocacy for Israel. Israel and its supporters are verbotten. And payed for out of compulsory fees the Jewish targets cannot avoid. n nIt is noxious to compel payment for speech deliberately offensive to those whose payment is coerced and has long since ceased to reside within the precincts of free speech issues.
I suppose the roughing-up sort of thing occasionally happens. If the objection were to physical intimidation, I would join you in condemning it. But often the complaints are simply that people voiced nasty comments about Israel and Zionism, and it made some Jewish students uncomfortable. n nI know there's anotion, promoted by "anti-racists," that students shouldn't be made uncomfortable even by verbal expressions of ideas, but to me, at least, that's inconsistent with free speech. Ideas one hears in college should sometimes by uncomfortable to hear. n nAs for official subsidies to symposia and such, I agree they should not be confined to one side of a contested issue. Whether student Jewish and Zionist organizations are subsidized at Brooklyn College, I have no idea, but with 30% Jewish enrollment, however they define "Jewish," I'd be surprised if some of the money didn't go to groups that even Hikind would approve of.
How do you feel about barring Jewish or pro-Israel students from events? Or making them pay to enter an event that was advertised as free? Or preventing them from taking notes or photos? Or shouting them down in Q&A when they expose the speaker's lies, or challenge the speaker's calls for violence? All of these have happened on various U of Cal. campuses, as have physical intimidation and physical attacks on pro-Israel students, but the administration has not seen fit to do much about it.
Discriminating against anyone at a public or university-sponsored event is wrong., unless it's some kind of private club. Shouting people down may be rude, but it's part of open debate. n nSome of these things may have happened, I suppose, but there is an organized campaign to in effect bar anti-Zionist activity from campuses on the theory that it's somehow "anti-Semitic." Mostly it isn't. And even so, the First Amendment protects most kinds of speech, including speech offensive to Jews, Christians, atheists, Zionists, Muslims, pinkos, and Arab nationalists. As it should do.
I have watched and listened to Middle Eastern students in Orange County shout down a Jewish speaker, make threats…they were caught on video too….yet, if anyone else does that, they get arrested, charged and jailed. What planet are you living in Old Man? And try your "offensive speech" against anything Muslim and you'll end up hiding out until you are either killed or die naturally!
I would only add: make all tell the actual truth of whatever they are saying rather then allowing hate to be spewed!
"They" don't see the world as it is but as they have been brainwashed to see it.
if the BDS movement was really in earnest, they'd be boycotting things invented by Israelis too, for instance, their cellphones. but of course they won't do that. n n"never again"? for the BDS dhimmis, it's "the sooner the better."
Our academic institutions have become a cesspool for pro-jihadist , Western leftist nutters . Time to clean house.
While you're at it, be sure to burn their books.
Gee, I wonder when you figured that out and how much longer before America realizes that it is so bad, our children have been carefully indoctrinated while we looked away.
this freedom of speech thing is dangerous ….. and all the Israelis enrolled in Brooklyn College (which probably doesn't come quite to 30% of total enrollment, Bethany) should boycott the conference or demonstrate against it.
…"Jewish students are no less entitled – under applicable federal law – than other students to an educational environment free of intimidation and prejudice.'' Geez, when did this law pass and when has it been enforced when it was white or jewish students being demeaned, threatened or denied their free speech rights? Besides, as I understand the progressives which the Jews support, they don't believe in the Jewish God or any god for that matter…most are secular so, doesn't that mean they are part of the "establishment"? In fact, I've read many secular Jews' views on Israel and they sound no different to me than what I consider anti-semitic. The Jews have finally(!) become part of the "world", I hope they enjoy.