Nadia Yaqub, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), emailed campus leadership and colleagues on Oct. 14 to inform them that the Oct. 7 atrocities Hamas committed were “provoked” by Israel, in her view.

Yaqub also chastised then-UNC Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz for issuing a campus statement the day before in which he wrote, “The senseless acts of terror in Israel by Hamas are horrifying. I condemn this terrible violence.”

Yaqub told the Chancellor that she was “disappointed and discouraged by what you wrote.” Yaqub continued, saying she had “warned” the Chancellor a week before about issuing such a statement.

On Nov. 28, I attended an event at UNC titled “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk about Social Justice in Palestine.” A speaker — Rania Masri — boasted that Oct. 7 was a “beautiful day.” In January, Yaqub spoke at a UNC Faculty Council meeting to oppose a resolution, titled “Condemning Antisemitism on Campus,” that sought to rebuke Masri’s remarks. To the dismay of the Jewish community and many UNC faculty, the resolution did not pass.

Yaqub told Inside Higher Ed that she did not believe that Masri’s comments were “objectively antisemitic,” and that “what actually happened on that day [Oct. 7], and who actually committed what, is still very unclear.”

A source sent me the first page of what appears to be Yaqub’s current syllabus for ARAB 151 — Arabic Literature Through the Ages. The syllabus states, “In light of the extraordinary violence being brought to bear against Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since October 7 and the shockingly callous position the United States government has taken vis-à-vis that violence, it is incumbent on us to educate ourselves about all aspects of the Palestinian condition.”

It seems Yaqub intends to use an Arabic literature class at a public university to focus on condemning Israel and the United States.

I requested a copy of the full syllabus from UNC using a public records request. My request was declined, saying the syllabus is Yaqub’s “intellectual property.”

Reviews posted at Rate My Professors state that Yaqub “presents Israel as this cartoon-ish villain … and basically says ‘Israel bad, Palestine good,’” and that she “has a notable bias towards Palestine.”

In other UNC news, a campus panel titled “News Media Frameworks for Israel/Palestine” is scheduled for Feb. 16. All five speakers are well known anti-Israel activists.

Four speakers — Amahl Bishara, Dina Matar, Rebecca Stein, and Helga Tawil-Souri — signed a 2021 statement pledging to promote the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel “in the classroom and on campus.”

The fifth scheduled speaker — Michael Palm — signed a 2021 statement saying, “We acknowledge our complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians,” and “express our solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

Five UNC departments and institutes are sponsoring the event: the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Departments of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies and Communication, and the Curriculums in Global Studies and Peace, War, & Defense.

In the Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Department, three top administrators signed the 2021 statement condemning Israel’s “oppression” of the Palestinian people: Chair Morgan Pitelka, Associate Chair Robin Visser, and Director of Graduate Studies Yaron Shemer. Two administrators in the Curriculum in Global Studies also signed the statement: Chair Banu Gökariksel and Director of Internships & Diversity Liaison, Michal Osterweil.

This planned event raises a simple question: Are multiple UNC departments planning to defy North Carolina law that requires the university to be institutionally neutral “on the political controversies of the day”?

In November, UNC’s chancellor and provost issued a statement reminding the campus community of the university’s supposed commitment to “institutional neutrality.” Yet it seems that multiple campus departments and institutes are ignoring or spurning this reminder.

In October, UNC’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies published a “Solidarity Statement” with Palestinians, which was condemned and eventually removed from their website for lacking institutional neutrality. The notorious Nov. 28 event featured a panel of anti-Israel activists without a single pro-Israel or even neutral voice. The upcoming Feb. 16 event appears to promise more of the same.

It seems that university department heads and professors have forgotten or are unaware that UNC also signed a Resolution Agreement with the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights that it will “take all steps reasonably designed to ensure that students enrolled in the University are not subjected to a hostile environment.”

The UNC Charlotte website explains, “The goal of institutional neutrality is to promote the open exchange of ideas on campus by ensuring that schools don’t inhibit dissenting opinions.”

At the Nov. 28 event, not only were all the speakers anti-Israel activists, but the audience was not permitted to ask questions. Dissenting opinions were not invited, included, or allowed.

Why are so many UNC departments afraid to offer students and the community institutionally neutral events where speakers respectfully discuss and debate complex issues from different perspectives?

Instead, UNC is training and indoctrinating generations of students that Israel is evil. When will the legislature and the university demand that UNC departments adhere to institutional neutrality and obey both the law and the agreements for which they are legally liable?

Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.

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