Tuesday November 7

Good news: I almost have a draft of a conference paper. Less good news: my blog-writing time today was taken up with trying to write an op-ed for the media, which has to be a max of 800 words (not my strength.. still working on that) and then that time was co-opted by a sudden letter I needed to write to my university administration. I copy the latter below, because it's all I have to offer you today. More tomorrow.

November 7, 2023

Dear President Tomberlin and Provost Rankin,

We are writing to you as faculty who are becoming increasingly concerned for our safety, and the safety of our Jewish students, on campus at Carleton. As you know, CU has not been immune to the rise of antisemitic vitriol, hate speech, and outright lies about Jews and about Israel that is spreading across universities and in the media throughout North America. The campus groups that are at the root of this violence-inducing rhetoric include the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP explicitly echoes the justification and glorification of violence against Jews that is part of the mission statement of Hamas. Hamas has been designated a terrorist entity in Canada. SJP is calling for a campus-wide walkout Thursday afternoon in order to rally in the quad, “in order to raise awareness among our fellow students about the genocide in Palestine and to demand change from Carleton University.” In addition to the BDS movement divestments that they are demanding, they are also demanding that buildings and programs named after “those complicit in ethnic cleansing” are renamed, and that CU put a halt to study trips to Israel. These demands are based entirely on outright lies about Israel and about Zionism.

CU is home to many Jewish faculty members and students. We already feel unsafe in the present climate. We are asking you to put a stop to this walkout. This rally, like all of the others happening around the world, provides a forum at which the repeated lies about “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “apartheid,” and Zionist “racism” will be once again elevated to the status of truths in order to justify violence against Jews. We are asking for countervailing voices of authority – yours – to speak out against the false narratives, untruths, and hate-filled rhetoric about Jews and Israel. This is not about academic freedom or free speech. It is about the duty of a university to provide education against false and violent-inducing revisionist political science and history, and to provide safe spaces for everyone, including Jews, Israelis, and their friends and allies. SJP continues to glorify violence, and your silence provides tacit approval. Your silence emboldens those who call for it. We have seen this on campuses and in cities across North America and Europe. We are asking you to speak up and declare all of your students, faculty, and staff have a right to be here, and be fully protected. There is a clear line between education and harassment. SJP continues to cross it, unimpeded. Your silence speaks for you. We are asking you to re-draw that line and keep hatred out of our place of work and study.

If a white supremacist group whose platform aligned with the Ku Klux Klan, whose language echoed its language, whose posters glorified its deeds, chanted and marched across the quad their slogans about removing all BIPOC peoples from their homes and their lands, you would do something. If this group routinely invoked stereotypes, made false accusations, offered revisionist histories and one-sided political discourse in the guise of “raising awareness among our fellow students,” deploying hurtful imagery and misplacing blame, the trauma, panic, withdrawal, and mental anguish of BIPOC members of the university community would be obvious to you and you would take a stand against allowing this group to stage their walkout and their rally. Please understand that in echoing the rhetoric and the false narratives of Hamas, SJP is doing exactly this. Jewish and Israeli-affiliated faculty, staff, and students are experiencing exactly the same trauma, panic, withdrawal, and mental anguish. We implore you to do everything in your power to render Carleton a safe space for everyone by shutting down SJP’s plans immediately.

Sincerely,