The U.S. Department of Education has exonerated two more UC campuses — Irvine and Santa Cruz — of allegations that they fostered anti-Semitic climates by allowing protests against Israeli policies and other incidents that Jewish students contended amounted to illegal harassment. UC…
read moreAuthor Alice Walker was invited then disinvited to the University of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women celebration of its 50th anniversary. On her blog Walker blamed “removal of funding from…donors, because of…comments regarding Israel”. Walker has done more…
read moreSince I joined Southern Fried Science in 2009, I’ve written almost 1,000 blog posts. This post has unquestionably been the most difficult one for me to write. Although I’ve always enjoyed sharing and debating my opinions (even when they’re unpopular…
read moreNovelist Alice Walker was invited, then disinvited, from speaking at the Univeristy of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women’s fifiteth anniversary celebration. Walker claims that the disinvitation came because of pressure from pro-Israel donors. The Center claims that they…
read moreSamuel Sandler, an aeronautical engineer and head of the Jewish community in Versailles, France, announced a few weeks ago that he’d had the local synagogue registered as a national landmark. “My feeling is that our congregation will be gone…
read more“Hope for the best and prepare for the worst” might be the official motto of the pro-Israel community. Each summer groups anticipate anti-Israel activity will flare up on America’s campuses and work to prepare campus professionals and students to respond.…
read morePerhaps no cosmology lacks for its devils, evil spirits–personifications of a wrongness so unacceptable that it can be granted no legitimate space if the community is to survive. Indeed, if famed French literary critic, René Girard, is correct, then what…
read moreJust as some people believe alligators are in New York sewers; many Israeli officials and American Jews are convinced American college campuses are aflame with delegitimizers and anti-Semites. Each year I try to disabuse people of this notion and put…
read moreBravo to the University of Michigan for disinviting Alice Walker – and shame on Walker for reportedly spreading false rumors about Michigan’s reasons for doing so. The University of Michigan recently withdrew a speaking invitation to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The…
read moreWhy did the University of Michigan withdraw an invitation to Alice Walker? Walker is an author best known for The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983. That work and others by her are widely taught at many…
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