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Connecticut College president says she will resign, following campus protests over planned fundraiser at golf club with antisemitic past
(JTA) – The president of Connecticut College has announced she will step down at the end of the semester, following weeks of student protests stemming from a fundraiser she had planned to attend at a golf club with a reportedly racist and antisemitic history.
Katherine Bergeron’s announcement Friday capped a saga that saw mounting backlash spread across the small liberal arts campus in New London. For roughly a month, ad-hoc student groups occupied a central administrative building on campus to demand Bergeron’s resignation, and in early March, school faculty passed an overwhelming vote of no confidence in her leadership.
The key student activist organization that led the protests held its initial meeting in the campus Hillel building, and its organizers sought out and encouraged Jewish representation. During the weeks when the occupation of the administrative building was taking place, Hillel canceled a planned Shabbat dinner with Bergeron and issued a statement in solidarity with the activists.
“It has been an honor to serve this College for the past nine and a half years,” Bergeron wrote in her resignation letter. While not explicitly mentioning the student protests or the inciting incident, Bergeron wrote, “The past several weeks have proven particularly challenging, and as president, I fully accept my share of responsibility for the circumstances that have led us to this moment.”
The controversy at Connecticut College began in February when the school’s dean of institutional equity and inclusion resigned following a disagreement with Bergeron over a planned fundraiser at the Everglades Club, an exclusive golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. The club has reportedly excluded Jewish and Black people in the past.
While the fundraiser was canceled, campus uproar surrounding it soon snowballed into a larger movement to push the college to direct more funding toward diversity and inclusion-related causes. Those include campus education around antisemitism and more funding for Jewish studies.
Debo Adegbile, chair of the college’s board of trustees, said in a statement that the board would commit itself to “providing additional resources” to advance the campus office of institutional equity and inclusion. A spokesperson for the college declined further comment.
“We are so proud that our consistent protests paid off and made such a big impact,” Davi Schulman, a Jewish sophomore at the college and member of its Hillel leadership team, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We can now really look forward to the College’s future.”
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Lebanon Plans UN Complaint Against Israel Over Border Wall
A UN vehicle drives near a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border which, according to the Lebanese presidency, extends beyond the “Blue Line”, a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as seen from northern Israel, November 16, 2025. REUTERS/Shir Torem
Lebanon will file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border that extends beyond the “Blue Line,” the Lebanese presidency said on Saturday.
The Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said on Friday the wall has made more than 4,000 square meters (nearly an acre) of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the local population.
The Lebanese presidency echoed his remarks, saying in a statement that Israel’s ongoing construction constituted “a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and an infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Dujarric said the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had requested that the wall be removed.
An Israeli military spokesperson denied on Friday that the wall crossed the Blue Line.
“The wall is part of a broader IDF plan whose construction began in 2022,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learned from it, the IDF has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border.”
UNIFIL, established in 1978, operates between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
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Iran Says US Is Not Ready for ‘Equal and Fair’ Nuclear Talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Washington’s current approach toward Tehran does not indicate any readiness for “equal and fair negotiations,” Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump hinted last week at potential discussions.
Following Israel’s attack on Iran in June, which was joined by U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, attempts at renewing dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program have failed.
The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran and Washington underwent five rounds of indirect nuclear talks prior to the 12-days-war, but faced obstacles such as the issue of domestic uranium enrichment, which the U.S. wants Iran to forego.
“The U.S. cannot expect to gain what it couldn’t in war through negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi said during a Tehran conference named “international law under assault.”
“Iran will always be prepared to engage in diplomacy, but not negotiations meant for dictation,” he added.
During the same conference, deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh accused Washington of pursuing its wartime goals with “negotiations as a show.”
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Israeli Government Decides ‘Independent’ Commission to Investigate Oct. 7 Failures
The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli government has approved the creation of an “independent” commission of inquiry to examine the failures that enabled the Hamas assault of October 7, 2023.
However, in a move sharply criticized by the opposition and contrary to the recommendation of the Supreme Court, the panel will not be a formal state commission of inquiry. Instead, its mandate, authorities, and scope will be determined directly by government ministers.
According to the decision, the commission will receive full investigative powers and must be composed in a way that ensures “the broadest possible public trust.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a special ministerial committee tasked with defining what the inquiry may investigate, the time periods to be reviewed, and the authority it will receive. The committee has 45 days to deliver its recommendations.
For the past year, the government has repeatedly resisted calls to establish a state commission, arguing at first that such a body could not operate during wartime. Later, some ministers accused Supreme Court President Isaac Amit of being incapable of appointing an impartial chairperson.
But on October 15, the High Court of Justice ruled that there was “no substantive argument” against forming a state commission, giving the government 30 days to respond.
Netanyahu maintains that responsibility for the October 7 failures lies primarily with Israel’s security agencies rather than with political leaders.
His critics accuse him of creating a weaker, government-controlled inquiry designed to limit scrutiny of his decisions, undermining the prospect of full accountability for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.