(Twitter screenshot via Canary Mission.)
In my line of work, I see a lot of material about campus bias. But two of these incidents from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are not just about student harassment or protests, they’re a ban on Jews.
The list of incidents in the Brandeis Center complaint include the usual vandalism, swastikas, and SJP incitement against “Zionists”. Student government members being bullied out of office, and Jewish students feeling threatened on campus.
But two in particular stand out.
March 2017: A UIUC Vice Chancellor removed a Jewish student from the UIUC Campus Student Elections Commission during a referendum campaign to determine whether UIUC should divest from Israeli companies. The Vice Chancellor later justified her decision by saying that the student is “Jewish, I had to remove her because she’s biased.”
September 21, 2020: The ISG Committee on Diversity and Inclusion held a meeting to discuss a resolution calling for UIUC to divest from certain companies that do business with Israel. During this meeting, an ISG Senator proposed an amendment that would add a Jewish cultural center— such as Hillel or Chabad—to the list of student groups represented on the resolution’s task force. According to a meeting attendee, one of the resolution’s authors responded, “I would absolutely include a Jewish student on the committee, but they could not be affiliated with Jewish student orgs on campus that I know of, like Chabad or Hillel.” A UIUC faculty advisor was present at this meeting—and heard the author’s statements—yet said nothing.
These two incidents are explicit bans on Jewish. And there’s also this blatant incitement and justification of the murder of Jews at a mandatory event.
September 25, 2019: During a mandatory diversity training session, a UIUC Multicultural Advocate gave a presentation titled “Palestine & Great Return March: Palestinian Resistance to 70 Years of Israeli Terror.” The presentation glorified violence against Jews: it depicted Leila Khaled, a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (“PFLP”), as a positive symbol of Palestinian resistance. (The U.S. State Department has designated PFLP a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has designed PFLP a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity). The presentation also contained a slide titled “martyrdom,” which was defined as “[s]acrificing of the heroes who are killed in the battles of the enemy,” and “[d]eath which is desired by a warrior.”
Come for the antisemitism, get some terrorist indoctrination.
SJP promoted the rally by insisting that “[t]here is no room for fascists, white supremacists, or Zionists at UIUC.” SJP later argued on its Facebook page that there exists an “unholy union of American fascists, white supremacists, and Zionists,” and encouraged “violent resistance”—including, if necessary, “full-scale armed conflict”—in response. During the rally itself, SJP’s president led the crowd in a chant of, “No Zionists! No KKK! Resisting fascists all the way!”
This is domestic terrorism.
The Trump administration was the first time that there were any real civil rights investigations launched into the targeting of Jews on college campuses, over the opposition of Democrats, and if Biden wins, those investigations will be shut down immediately. Count on it.
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