{"id":79603,"date":"2020-07-22T17:00:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=79603"},"modified":"2020-07-13T14:53:23","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T12:53:23","slug":"22-00-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=79603","title":{"rendered":"Former College Professor Is a Rabid Antisemite \u2014 and Must Be Condemned"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Former College Professor Is a Rabid Antisemite \u2014 and Must Be Condemned<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Jordan Cope \/ JNS.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

University of Texas football game. Photo: University of Texas.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Former\u00a0adjunct professor<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Texas (UT) Spencer Wells went on a recent\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0tirade against Israelis. Wells, who also served as a\u00a0member<\/a>\u00a0of the UT College of Natural Science\u2019s Advisory Council,\u00a0dreams<\/a>\u00a0of a nuclear war with Israel, and calls on people to \u201cbomb [Israel] until the sand turns to glass.\u201d He\u00a0denied<\/a>\u00a0Israelis a right to self-defense and even their lives, saying, \u201cYou\u2019re Apartheid oppressors. You deserve to die.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u00a0writes<\/a>: \u201cI just hope that with the upcoming US pullback from its role of Middle East protector that the Iranians feel empowered to take bolder steps in dealing with Israeli aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Wells is a celebrated figure. A former \u201cexplorer in residence\u201d at the National Geographic Society, he is considered a world expert on the subject of \u201cpersonal genomics.\u201d He has given TED talks, been a\u00a0guest<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Daily Show<\/em>\u00a0with Jon Stewart, and is regularly interviewed by media outlets around the world. Wells also served as a\u00a0member<\/a>\u00a0of the College of Natural Science\u2019s Advisory Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although his service to the university\u00a0expired<\/a>\u00a0last May, his legacy remains. He remains an \u201cOutstanding Young Texas Ex<\/a>\u201d as awarded by TexasExes, the university\u2019s \u201cofficial<\/a>\u00a0alumni association.\u201d Other recipients elevated to such\u00a0honor<\/a>\u00a0include Governor Greg Abbott and film star Matthew McConaughey.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Wells\u2019 most recent tweets were issued after his work at UT, his antisemitism also manifested during his employment there. In April, while still an adjunct professor, Wells attacked Jews for their spending habits. He noted on Twitter \u201cJews hiring private jets to fly to Israel for burial. Utterly insane.\u201d Despite Wells making said statement during his time and in his capacity at UT, the university did not condemn it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In its official statement, the university merely observed that it has no \u201cassociation with the views held by Wells,\u201d who \u201cis no longer a faculty or advisory member.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

UT\u2019s failure to speak out appears in stark contrast to promises by university officials last month to condemn all acts of hate, such as those occurring out of state and by those with no ties to the university. On June 1, Interim President Jay Hartzell in his email \u201cUT Austin: Turbulent and Difficult Times\u201d condemned George Floyd\u2019s murder at the hands of police officers in Minnesota as \u201csenseless,\u201d while also stressing \u201cwe must continue our struggle for meaningful and enduring change to overcome acts of racism and violence that continue to erode our community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Does UT not believe Spencer Wells\u2019 hatred also corrodes our community?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is certainly not the only example of prospective antisemitism affecting UT\u2019s Jewish community. In 2017, a window at UT\u2019s Hillel was\u00a0bashed<\/a>\u00a0in. And Wells\u2019 comments are not the first time that university officials have looked the other way. A number of instances of campus antisemitism, as reflected by Wells\u2019 hatred of Israel and Jews, is fueled by misconceptions regarding the Jewish state. Many of these misconceptions are regularly perpetuated by the UT Middle Eastern Studies Department.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, that department has been problematic enough that it inspired UT Professor Michael Craig Hillmann\u2019s book\u00a0From Classroom to Courtroom<\/em>, which\u00a0explores<\/a>\u00a0allegations of internal \u201cfavoritism, intimidation, abuse, harassment, and racism\u201d and \u201cethnic, religious, and gender discrimination.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing about UT, Benjamin Baird of the Middle East Forum has\u00a0noted<\/a>: \u201cNo such constraints deter these professors from presenting ahistorical, one-sided accounts of the Middle East. Whether designing anti-Israel curricula for secondary education, accepting funds from Islamist organizations, teaching from radical sources, or producing scholarship that advances an anti-American, anti-Western agenda, professors in CMES [the Center for Middle Eastern Studies] have clearly been hired and promoted with an eye to their ideological purity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With these biases, perhaps it\u2019s not too surprising that an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish academic found a home at the university. Was UT merely jumping on a bandwagon when it spoke out against Floyd\u2019s murder? Or is it truly committed to calling out hate? If the latter is true, then UT must prove its dedication. The president\u2019s office must condemn comments by Wells, whether expressed while a UT professor or afterwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, given the university\u2019s failure to apply equal standards, administrators must adopt an objective standard for antisemitism, such as the\u00a0IHRA<\/a>\u2019s. After all, UT must not be allowed to pick and choose what type of hatred it deems fashionable to oppose.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Jordan Cope<\/strong> is a law student at the University of Texas, where he also earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in international relations with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. He has been published in multiple forums on counter-terrorism and the Middle East.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former College Professor Is a Rabid Antisemite \u2014 and Must Be Condemned Jordan Cope \/ JNS.org University of Texas football game. Photo: University of Texas. Former\u00a0adjunct professor\u00a0at the University of Texas (UT) Spencer Wells went on a recent\u00a0Twitter\u00a0tirade against Israelis. Wells, who also served as a\u00a0member\u00a0of the UT College of Natural Science\u2019s Advisory Council,\u00a0dreams\u00a0of a […]<\/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\/79603"}],"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=79603"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79620,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79603\/revisions\/79620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}