Things sure changed after Claudine Gay left. Nothing to see, move along.
January 2, 2024: Claudine Gay leaves.
January 11, 2024: Students sue Harvard over antisemitism.
January 29, 2024: Puzzlegal posts about the lawsuit, leading to an extensive discussion of the merits of the claims (especially of one incident, which is painted by other observers very differently from the lawsuit’s depiction).
February 21, 2024: Jackmannii posts about the lawsuit, suggesting that it shows nothing has changed at Harvard since Gay’s resignation.
I’m not sure that timeline is super informative.
I’m not sure you paid attention to the timing of the posting of that grotesque anti-Semitic cartoon by two Harvard groups this past weekend (one comprising faculty and staff), which occurred well after Gay’s departure.
But there’s no problem with anti-Semitic bigotry on campus, no conflating of opposition to Israel with rank anti-Jewish hatred.
Suure.
FWIW
- Pretty positive not. This is a separate event
- Your link was paywall for me. Here is another one.
Harvard condemns antisemitic image circulated by pro-Palestinian groups on campus | CNN Business - What different would you have Harvard do in this instance? They responded and condemned. The groups removed it and apologized blaming its publication on “ignorance and inadequate oversight”. Yeah. Of course it was just shocking to them that such images are offensive. How could they have known? Should people be kicked out? Would that help much?
The antisemitism is there. Has been there and is more freely expressed than before. But in this case it seems like the administration responded reasonably.
That cartoon is indeed terrible. Although I do have some sympathy for the supposed intent to highlight the shared nature of colonial oppression, sub-Gifpilz level ZOG conspiracy material is not the way to highlight that message.
Even if offending the offensive is a laudable goal in itself, they picked entirely the wrong offending party to call out, in the most classically antisemitic way possible.
It should have been a sword and an olive branch in that star, not a dollar sign. Amateurs.
??? Yes, absolutely I paid attention to that. I was confused why you linked to something else, a lawsuit that addressed issues that arose before her departure, and then followed that link by snarking about how things have changed after her departure. Was the link a non sequitur?
Yes, her departure did not magically end all antisemitism on campus. Did anyone expect that it would? Do you think the school should have responded to this instance of antisemitism differently?
During the War in Vietnam I joined the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. This was formed by members of the American Socialist Party who opposed the War in Vietnam. (Most Socialist Party members opposed America’s entry into World War II and supported the War in Vietnam. It’s a long story.)
The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which later evolved into Democratic Socialists of America, was virtually unanimous in its support for Israel.
Interestingly, DSA today is virtually unanimous in its opposition to Israel!
There is some scary shit going on. Not directly college-related, but…
Last week a Matisyahu concert here in Chicago was cancelled because of threats of violent demonstrations by pro-Palestinian organizations. Matisyahu is a Jewish-American reggae artist and a supporter of the peace movement. He’s certainly not a right-wing Zionist…he’s not even Israeli! But apparently the fact that he has played concerts in Israel is sufficient to justify his cancellation. I very much doubt that every gentile American musician who has ever played in Israel is being hounded by these people; it appears to me that the real goal is just to intimidate people who dare to be Jewish in public. None of this made the news media as far as I’m aware, I just heard about it from people who had tickets.
It made the news media here in the Chicago area.
The truth, unsurprisingly, is more complex:
When it comes to “threats of violent demonstrations,” either Matisyahu is wrong, or you are.
It sounds like he may have been talking about concerts which were cancelled in other cities. Here is a link to the Twitter post your link quotes in part, which clearly says the Chicago show was cancelled “due to threat of protests”. The reference to “no threats of violence” sounds as though maybe there had been no explicit threats of violence that he knew of, and he felt that the House of Blues was being overly cautious.
So my post was wrong in implying that explicit threats had actually been made, but it seems clear that the show was indeed cancelled because HoB felt threatened by the possibility of violence.
I really struggle to see how you get that second part. “Threats of protest” and “threats of violence” are NOT the same thing. The link you offered contains the line I quoted, which I’ll quote again:
How do you get from “there have been no threats of violence” to “HoB felt threatened by the possibility of violence”?
I’m really struggling to think what other reason, besides fear of violence, would cause someone to cancel an event due to planned demonstrations. They were afraid the demonstrators might litter?
But here’s some more context, from a Washington Post article yesterday:
Still, there has been no transparency as to exactly what threat necessitated his cancellation in Chicago. Matisyahu told me police advised the House of Blues that a crowd of more than 1,000 might assemble outside the venue. The singer offered to help out with 40 contracted security personnel, he said, but Live Nation passed and called off the performance.
Brendan Reilly, a Chicago alderman who represents the area around the House of Blues, said in a statement March 11 that police told his office of “serious concerns regarding security” two days before the event and had discussed potential “violent protests” with Live Nation and House of Blues staff.
The Chicago police, who have plenty of experience with demonstrations related to Gaza since Oct. 7, told me by email the department had “sufficient resources allocated to the planned protests.”
I think this supports my theory that HoB may have called off the show based on nebulous fears and Matisyahu was annoyed by that.
Certainly the demonstrators themselves were happy to take credit.
The U.S. Palestinian Community Network, one of several groups calling for demonstrations against Matisyahu, cried victory: “Through our relentless pressure on [the House of Blues and] Live Nation, the concert of the racist, zionist Matisyahu was canceled!” the group said in a statement on X. “Chicago has made it clear that it stands with Palestine and supporters of the #GazaGenocide are not welcome here!”
This doesn’t seem suprising to me at all. They thought it would make the concert experience shitty: people who were out for a fun night on the town and who think of themselves as kind liberals would instead find themselves yelled at and shamed by a throng who were making it much less pleasant to get into the venue. It’s much the same logic behind picketers outside a store, who make it less pleasant to shop at the store, and it certainly doesn’t require violence.
I suppose it’s possible that the HoB or the CPD were afraid of violence even though there were no threats of violence. If they were afraid without cause, that’s not an indictment of the protestors, but of them.
You also suggest that the “real goal is just to intimidate people who dare to be Jewish in public.” That’s not a fair summary of why he’s being protested. From the JPost article I cited above:
He’s one of four people that Israel’s government is commending for advocating on behalf of Israel during its war on Gaza. If folks disagree with Israel’s conduct during the war, a peaceful protest of someone who advocates for that conduct and who is recognized by the Israeli government for his advocacy seems like a perfectly appropriate action.
Yes, at the time of my original post, I hadn’t been aware of his recent Israel advocacy, so that does put matters in a very different light.
I find it hard to believe that promoters would cancel a concert and refund many thousands of dollars based on mere concern that people wouldn’t enjoy it as much as they’d hoped to when they bought the tickets, though. It’s not like people are going to blame HoB for the existence of the protest and decide not to go back.
I suppose it’s possible that the HoB or the CPD were afraid of violence even though there were no threats of violence. If they were afraid without cause, that’s not an indictment of the protestors, but of them.
Yes, this seems like the most likely scenario to me.
They may have also feared a spreading boycott, either organized or disorganized (I.e., people being like, “House of Blues? ugh, didn’t they have that guy that’s shilling for Netanyahu? Let’s go somewhere else”), or being avoided by other musicians for similar reasons; or they may have had staff who said, “I’m not sure we should have this guy here.”
I appreciate this.
They were afraid the demonstrators might block the area roads, causing other business owners to be angry at them, and/or making it difficult or impossible for people to attend?
They were afraid the demonstrators would verbally harass attendees and their workers?
They didn’t want to be dealing for weeks with the results of news stories? (If so: fail. I expect they’re now dealing with the results of news stories about the cancellation.)
That’s certainly possible.
You’re shifting goal posts to bolster your argument. Advocating for Israel’s right to exist and advocating for Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks are not equivalent things. And advocating for Palestinian liberation from mistreatment by the Israeli government is not equivalent to calling for the abolishment of the nation of Israel. You were trying to argue that anti-senitism is the only possible explanation for the unique amount of attention that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict receives, and your response here doesn’t support that argument.
And this is more goalpost shifting. As though denying rape counseling is some kind of prerequisite that comes part and parcel with advocating for Palestinian liberation and criticizing the actions of the Israeli government? Like, what?
This is a reference to an incident mentioned in the OP, which linked to @DSeid 's post about his daughter’s school, which was in the news for that, among other things.
This includes Jewish students being kicked out of a support group for sexual assault victims, “online harassment against Jewish students by a Teaching Assistant,” and attacks on the university’s Hillel building, which supports Jewish life on campus.
…
The complaint alleges that school administrators were aware of these incidents, but have “taken no steps to rectify the situation.”
…
The teaching assistant is also alleged to be behind an effort to exclude pro-Israel and Jewish students from campus groups, including one for sexual assault survivors.
I didn’t believe this is typical of what’s going on at college campuses. I think it’s more typical to be barraged with anti-Israel (and also anti-semitic) messages in semi-public places. But extreme cases of harassing students for being Jewish certainly seem to be happening.
According to DSeid’s post near the start of this thread,
That is, students were excluded from this program not specifically for being Jewish, but for refusing to condemn Israel’s actions. I agree that no valid purpose whatsoever is served by foregrounding the Israel/Palestinian conflict in the context of a sexual-assault survivors’ support services program, but describing that as “kicking out Jewish students” is somewhat misleading.
The reporting on “attacks on the Hillel building” on the same campus may also be debatable, as I discussed above after reading the incident report. But the harassment of Israel-supporting students, sometimes in unambiguously antisemitic terms, by a particular teaching assistant at UVM is clearly documented.
As the advocacy group that filed the formal complaint argued, the university was “permitting a hostile environment that marginalizes and excludes Jewish students for whom Zionism is integral to their Jewish identity.” Although the hostility was directed specifically against Zionism rather than Judaism, that leaves Jewish students who sincerely feel that their Judaism requires them to support Zionism, or even to support the actions of a given Israeli government, caught between a rock and a hard place.