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Why Northwestern University Needs a New President
Northwestern University president Michael Schill looks on during a US House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on anti-Israel protests on college campuses, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
Northwestern University President Michael Schill has fallen short at the most important part of his job: keeping all students safe.
While testifying before Congress on May 23, President Schill declared, “My number one objective and mandate when parents give me their children, or lend me their children, I need to keep them safe….” Yet his actions do not back up that statement.
President Schill ignored concerns from Jewish students in the months leading up to Oct. 7 that antisemitism on the Evanston, Illinois, campus was rising, and they did not feel safe. He ignored Jewish students who pleaded with him after Oct. 7 to address the unsafe environment that was growing on campus. When an anti-Israel encampment went up — in clear violation of the university’s updated student codes of conduct — his refusal to act essentially allowed Jewish students to be subjected to antisemitic harassment and intimidation on a daily basis without protection.
In what profession is an employee allowed to fail repeatedly at their self-identified “number one objective and mandate,” and still keep their job?
Why should we tolerate a university leader ignoring the pleas of one group of students who say they do not feel safe amid the evidence of rising hate, intolerance, and antisemitism on campus? Simply put, there is no scenario where this should be accepted, and we should not accept President Schill’s behavior.
Jewish students need to feel safe on campus, and to live in an environment free of harassment, intimidation, and threats, and President Schill has missed the mark at every turn. For that reason, it is clear that new leadership at Northwestern is needed.
This is not a position ADL takes lightly. We have a long history — going back decades — of positive engagement with the university. The president himself said in his testimony that he respects ADL’s work, even after we graded his administration’s performance with an “F” for the failure to address antisemitism and to protect Jewish students.
ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, is a graduate of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business, and always speaks highly of his experiences there as a student. We hoped President Schill’s May 23 testimony would help us and others understand why he did little to address antisemitism on campus before and after Oct. 7, and instead engaged in a policy of appeasement with anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrators. Sadly, the testimony did the exact opposite. It became clear that time and again, President Schill knowingly prioritized antisemitic rule-breaking over the safety of Jewish students.
President Schill’s testimony revealed hypocrisy, negligence, and platitudes. He testified that he had personally witnessed antisemitism on campus before and after Oct. 7, yet he admitted that no student has been disciplined for violating the university’s codes of conduct. Even more, when pressed by Congress, he refused to say if or when any students or faculty will be held accountable.
He asserted that the codes of conduct were inadequate to address the anti-Israel encampment, while also admitting, “[T]he encampment was breaking our rules.” But even after amending Northwestern’s codes of conduct specifically to prohibit the encampment, he and his administration then failed to enforce the new rules.
President Schill admitted he only appointed one expert on antisemitism to his Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism, and he acted surprised that the Committee could not reach consensus on the definition of antisemitism. Seven Jewish members of the committee, including the executive director of Northwestern’s Hillel, resigned from the Committee in response to the Deering Agreement. During his testimony, President Schill asked for the opportunity to form a new task force to address antisemitism after failing so spectacularly the first time.
President Schill testified that the Deering Agreement was reached at 4 am without consultation with Jewish students or leaders on campus, because such consultation was “impractical.” Yet President Schill somehow had time to consult with Jessica Winegar, a leading international proponent of the BDS movement whom he had appointed to his antisemitism advisory committee. In other words, he only asked those he knew would not push back against his capitulation while ignoring the months of input from Jewish students.
President Schill took credit for a “peaceful” end to the encampment. Yet he allowed the encampment to remain, and he rewarded protestors who had fanned the flames of antisemitism on campus, including with signage celebrating violence against Jews.
Finally, President Schill testified he still does not know who was behind the encampment, yet he somehow reached an agreement with encampment “leaders.”
Do you trust him to do his job and keep Northwestern students safe? We don’t.
New leadership at Northwestern is the first necessary step to restoring trust and confidence with Jewish students on campus, and ensuring they not only feel safe but are safe.
David Goldenberg is Midwest Regional Director of ADL (the Anti-Defamation League).
The post Why Northwestern University Needs a New President first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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