Rutgers University briefly suspended — and then unsuspended — its Student Bar Association last week after the body tried to prosecute a Jewish member who complained about the organization sharing Hamas propaganda.
Yoel Ackerman, a 36-year-old father of three, attended Rutgers as an evening student and said he had no interest in student government and only served reluctantly after being drafted by his classmates.
“My goal was just to go to law school. I thought I would go to a school with world-class academics and professors and instead, I somehow found myself being hunted by witches because I’m Jewish,” Ackerman said.
Ackerman said on Oct. 12 — just five days after Hamas killed 1,200 Israeli civilians at a music festival — a Rutgers SBA Palestinian member shared a video in a group chat denying Hamas’ atrocities and accusing Israel of “handing over” the slaughter.
When Ackerman later warned the Rutgers Jewish Law Student Association about antisemitic SBA members in their midst, the school opened an investigation against Ackerman for “defamation and lewd conduct.”
Rutgers law student Yoel Ackerman says he’s being targeted on campus because he’s Jewish.X @Yoelackerman123
“I found out later that the person who opened the investigation against me without talking to me was one of the deans of Rutgers,” Ackerman said.
It gets worse.
After Rutgers launched an investigation, he received a late-night call saying he and another Jewish SBA member would face an impeachment hearing, which amounted to three hours of public berating in front of his colleagues.
“They called us Zionists and we had to apologize for our actions. I was still confused about my actions or my mistakes and in the end they gave me five minutes to speak,” Ackerman recalled.
“I came out of it feeling something I had never felt before. . . . It is a public execution,”
Rutgers is investigating allegations of antisemitism on campus.RICHARD HARBUS
Only after the SBA acted to suspend its own constitution to hasten its removal did Ackerman retain the services of the American Center for Law & Justice.
Rutgers then moved to suspend the SBA, although Rutgers last week reinstated it.
“The Rutgers-Newark Division of Student Affairs continues to conduct an investigation in response to two student complaints. The situation involved claims and counterclaims between law students in a student-run organization,” the school said in a statement.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
