{"id":64506,"date":"2018-10-12T17:05:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64506"},"modified":"2018-10-12T12:46:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T10:46:17","slug":"16-05-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64506","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Students, Groups Applaud University of Michigan."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Jewish Students, Groups Applaud University of Michigan for \u2018Strong\u2019 Response to Faculty Who Refused to Give Recommendations for Israel Study<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiri Moshe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The University of Michigan. Photo: Dante Chinni.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The University of Michigan is being applauded by Jewish students and advocacy groups, after it announced\u00a0\u201cserious consequences\u201d for instructors\u00a0who withhold letters of recommendation due to their personal views.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0statement<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 issued by\u00a0U-M President Mark Schlissel and Provost Martin Philbert on Tuesday \u2014\u00a0was hailed as a robust\u00a0response to two recent incidents\u00a0involving\u00a0students who sought to study at Tel Aviv University, but were\u00a0rebuffed\u00a0by instructors who support the Palestinian-led boycott campaign against Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of these instructors \u2014\u00a0associate professor John Cheney-Lippold, who kicked off the\u00a0controversy<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0in September\u00a0by denying a recommendation to a student \u2014 was firmly chided over his stance\u00a0in a letter by\u00a0U-M interim dean and professor Elizabeth Cole last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was barred from receiving\u00a0a raise during the current academic year, or taking a sabbatical until the fall of 2020, and warned that future violations may result in additional discipline \u2014 up to and including the initiation of dismissal proceedings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schlissel and Philbert\u00a0also\u00a0announced<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0the formation of\u00a0\u201ca panel of distinguished faculty members\u201d that\u00a0will clarify the obligations that\u00a0instructors\u00a0have to their students, regardless of personal political beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

They further\u00a0apologized to students who were hurt by a recent on-campus presentation by Emory Douglas, a former member of the Black Panther Party who\u00a0showed<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>an image comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler. Douglas\u2019 talk was part of a mandatory program for art and design students.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0university\u2019s response\u00a0was commended by\u00a0leading Jewish communal groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, which praised its \u201cstrong guidelines\u00a0\u2026 [and] condemnation of actions that would unfairly impact students who wish to study in Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin \u2014 who heads the AMCHA Initiative, an antisemitism watchdog that led nearly 60 organizations in calling for disciplinary action against Cheney-Lippold \u2014 credited U-M for recognizing \u201cthe serious harm that an academic boycott\u2019s implementation causes its own students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cU-M has shown leadership in curbing this discriminatory behavior and stood up for\u00a0all<\/u>\u00a0of its students\u2019 civil and academic rights with this precedent,\u201d she said in a statement shared with\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>. \u201cWe fully commend U-M for the steps taken thus far to discipline Cheney-Lippold, and for establishing a panel that we hope will lead to a clear and comprehensive policy on professors who attempt to use their professional positions to push a personal, political\u00a0agenda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of faculty serving on U.S. campuses have endorsed an academic boycott of Israel,\u201d including more\u00a0than two dozen U-M professors, she pointed out. \u201cWe hope other university presidents will follow President Schlissel\u2019s leadership.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The university\u2019s stance was also warmly welcomed by some\u00a0members of the\u00a0Hillel Israel Cohort, an umbrella group of Israel-focused clubs at U-M, which encouraged students to wear blue and white T-shirts on Thursday in a sign of support for their community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to show pro-Israel students that they are not alone, show solidarity with Israel, and reveal to the campus that a large number of people support Israel and all the amazing things Israel has to offer,\u201d explained Noah Rubinstein, a U-M sophomore and president of the Israel advocacy club I-LEAD. \u201cThis also demonstrates how we are proud to be part of the greater Michigan community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rubinstein told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0that\u00a0the university\u2019s latest actions indicated that it \u201csupports all students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough these incidents are terrible, it is a good reminder for the pro-Israel community to bond together and come up with productive ways to improve Israel\u2019s image on campus,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel has previously became a contentious topic on campus, including when U-M\u2019s student government\u00a0adopted<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0a divestment resolution targeting the Jewish state this past November, after similar measures failed to pass on at least 10 separate occasions. Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), which\u00a0led the divestment campaign, expressed its\u00a0support on Tuesday for \u201cthe brave faculty and staff\u201d who are answering the demands of Palestinian civil society to boycott Israel, after protesting on campus with allied groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, concerns were also\u00a0raised<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0by some students\u00a0following\u00a0an on-campus lecture by Steven Salaita, a\u00a0boycott activist and former academic who in 2014 lost a conditional offer of employment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after tweeting, among other things, that Zionists had\u00a0transformed<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0antisemitism \u201cfrom something horrible into something honorable since 1948.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rubinstein observed that despite these incidents, and more recent matters,\u00a0he felt \u201ccomfortable on campus because the pro-Israel community contains such a large number of members who are all supportive of each other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI also feel supported by the university\u2019s stance against these incidents,\u201d he added, and endorsed\u00a0student-led efforts urging U-M to\u00a0adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alex Harris, a junior at U-M who serves as\u00a0Hillel\u2019s Israel community coordinator, shared a similar outlook.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful that the University is taking important steps to foster a positive learning environment for all its students,\u201d\u00a0Harris wrote on social media. \u201cWe also hope that the University\u2019s response will deter other professors from attempting to limit any student\u2019s academic opportunities in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Harris \u2014 who identified as \u201ca proud Wolverine, a proud Jew, and a proud Zionist\u201d \u2014\u00a0told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0that while \u201cat times it can be difficult\u201d to be an outwardly pro-Israel student, \u201cI do feel comfortable being who I am on campus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI owe a lot of this sense of security to my fellow Jewish Wolverines and supporters of Israel as well as support we have from organizations on campus,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jewish Students, Groups Applaud University of Michigan for \u2018Strong\u2019 Response to Faculty Who Refused to Give Recommendations for Israel Study Shiri Moshe The University of Michigan. Photo: Dante Chinni. The University of Michigan is being applauded by Jewish students and advocacy groups, after it announced\u00a0\u201cserious consequences\u201d for instructors\u00a0who withhold letters of recommendation due to their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64519,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64506\/revisions\/64519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}