Our main points in brief:

Harassment and Bullying - Jewish and Israeli members of the university have faced all manners of antisemitic and discriminatory slurs, ranging from conspiracies about a Jewish control over the world, to accusation of being Nazis and child-murderers. A general sentiment that Jews and Israelis cannot be victims facilitates the institutional tolerance of this hostility. Despite publicly reiterating its commitment to fight discrimination, the university has failed to respond adequately or at all to reports of these events.

Failure and Discrimination in Complaints Procedures - Complaints procedures against antisemitism are opaque and lack accountability, and those attempting to pursue them are often met with ignorance of what antisemitism is or with downright hostility. We request that this process be centralised and anonymised in line with the Oxford university sexual harassment complaint procedure

Pervasive Antisemitism at University Events - This environment of racial aggression has been to a large extent facilitated through the obsessive spread of unacademic, simplistic and often dehumanising narratives about Jews and Israelis inside university classrooms and events. We also ask that Oxford introduces a requirement for university events to be chaired by a neutral senior member of staff to prevent illegal hate speech. This has been successfully the practice at the LSE for many years now.

Serious Discourse Instead of Polarising Polemics - The university should cultivate an environment of civil, constructive discourse and provide the necessary educational tools for a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, as is appropriate for a world-class institution. We also ask that the university consider hosting formal educational events on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which will deliberately seek to represent both sides. 

List of Incidents -  At the bottom of our letter we enclose a list of over 100 severe incidents that we are aware of. If you are a student or a member of staff at the universe and you wish to add to this list, you can do so by reaching us at openletteroxford@gmail.com

To read the full letter, click here