One of the country’s most liberal colleges is under investigation for allegedly allowing antisemitism to fester on campus including having a peace studies professor who called for the elimination of Israel and the death of Salman Rushdie.
Oberlin College in Ohio could lose some of the millions in annual federal funding as a result of the investigation, the existence of which has not yet been disclosed to students, alumni and donors. Last year, the school received more than $5 million in federal grants.
A private liberal arts college is being investigated for possible violations of Title VI by in Ohio by the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The title protects students from harassment and discrimination because of their religion.
The investigation, which opened on September 29, was prompted by a complaint filed in 2019 by Oberlin College graduate Melissa Landa, who founded the Alliance for Israel to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel and hostility toward Jewish students. in school. Landa, who graduated from Oberlin in 1986, is president of the Oberlin Chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness, a nonprofit organization that works to end antisemitism.
He sent the department a dossier of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents between 2014 and 2017— and four years later, it finally acted.
Oberlin College is a progressive liberal arts college outside of Cleveland. It is now the subject of a federal investigation for alleged antisemitism. Alamy Stock Photo This is how the Department of Education revealed its investigation. The department wrote to Melissa Landa, an Oberlin graduate who complained about antisemitism on campus.
The document focuses on peace studies and religion professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who calls himself a “peace professor” but is accused of supporting Hamas and crediting students for writing anti-Israel blogs.
It claims Mahallati told his class in 2016 that “Israel is a colonial state” and “Israel is an apartheid state.”
Mahallati, 71, has also taught at Columbia, Georgetown and Princeton. Before becoming an Oberlin professor, he was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations where he was accused of defending the fatwa, or Islamic decree, issued by Khomeini to kill the novelist Salman Rushdie.
“I think all Muslim countries agree with Iran,” he told Reuters in 1989, Fox News reported. All countries and Islamic countries agree with Iran that any blasphemous statement against a holy figure should be condemned.”
Rushdie has lived under the threat of assassination since 1989 and in 2022 he was stabbed repeatedly while he was speaking at an event in Chautauqua, in upstate New York, losing an eye.
Author Salman Rushdie was targeted in 1989 by Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, who issued fatwa ordered Muslims around the world to kill him after the publication of his book, “The Satanic Verses.” He was stabbed by Iranian supporters at a literary event in upstate New York last year. Getty Images Oberlin graduate Melissa Landa (center) filed a complaint with the federal Department of Education alleging rampant antisemitism at the liberal arts school.education.umd. edu
His alleged attacker, Hadi Matar, who is charged with attempted murder, has been a supporter of the Iranian regime on social media.
The Oberlin professor has also been accused of helping the Iranian government cover up the killing of thousands of jailed political dissidents in 1988, according to a February report by Amnesty International calling the killings “disinformation” and “political propaganda” at the UN.
While working as a diplomat for Iran, he claimed it was a “religious duty” for Muslims to “liberate” Palestine from “Zionist usurpers.”
Students boycotted Mahallati’s classes, which were canceled in the spring. An Oberlin spokeswoman told The Post on Tuesday that Mahallati is on “sabbatical” this semester.
In 2014, Students for a Free Palestine activists placed a black flag outside the Oberlin College venue where Jewish students were scheduled to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. oberlinsfp/Facebook
The antisemitism complaint also accused Oberlin of failing to keep Jewish students safe.
It details how, in the fall of 2014, members of the campus group Students for a Free Palestine placed more than 2,000 black flags outside the venue where Jewish students held Rosh Hashanah services.
The flag is intended to imply that Oberlin’s Jewish residents are responsible for events in Israel, Landa alleged in her complaint.
An installation commemorating the deaths of Palestinians following airstrikes in the Gaza Strip was erected at Oberlin College in 2019. The plaque says that 34 Palestinian civilians “died at the hands of Zionist Settler Colonialism.oberlinsfp/Facebook
A banner accompanying the flag refers to Israel’s actions in the 2014 Gaza War as “murder,” according to the complaint.
A year later the student group posted on social media: “You are NOT taking a ‘neutral stance’ by refusing to support divestment. You say you don’t mind that a year’s tuition is funding murder, torture.”
Oberlin did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Mahallati did not return an email seeking comment Wednesday.
In New York, the state Division of Human Rights has opened an investigation into whether CUNY Law School discriminated against Jews when its faculty council passed a resolution last year supporting the pro-Palestinian BDS movement against Israel.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
