For Jews, The Ivy Is Still Poison
Nothing has changed in the Ivy League.
We all remember the disastrous testimony of three presidents of the Ivy League when testifying before Congress at the end of last year about their schools’ dismal response to the recent, massive rise of campus antisemitism. Two of them, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill, and Harvard’s Claudine Gay, have since resigned. The primary reason was their uniquely repulsive remarks regarding the safety and status of Jews at their respective schools. Magill resigned quickly. Gay refused to resign, doing so only after repeated revelations about her total lack of qualifications for the post, and her tendency (some would say “need”) to plagiarize.
This followed weeks of antisemitic incidents on campuses across the nation, many occurring across the Ivy League. I wrote about it back in December.
I can’t help but think, based on what I’ve personally observed, that for most Americans it was the end of the issue. Or, at the very least, the perception is that the two sacrificial resignations (both Magill and Gay remain as faculty, both retaining HUGE salaries), must have been the beginning of an end to such open toleration of Jew hatred.
If that is what you think: you think wrong.
Every single day, there are reports of incidents against Jewish students at universities across America. But recently, there were two that really caught my eye. One is egregious, and the other is egregious, heinous, and a lot of other really negative adjectives.
The nation just celebrated another Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I’m old enough to remember one of my elementary school teachers playing the “I Have Dream” speech on vinyl during class (this was in the very old days, before vinyl had any kind of retro cache). It, literally, gave me chills. The ideas that this great man so charismatically espoused, like the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character, not their skin color, pierced my elementary school consciousness. That was true of the other lofty ideals the speech is correctly revered for.
Little did I know that decades later, in another century, a prestigious, elite university would be giving something called the “MLK Jr. Social Justice Award” to someone that hates Israel, and would absolutely judge me by my religion, ethnicity, and undoubtedly for the color of my skin.
In fact, in his speech, King expressed longing for the day when “God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands…”
So giving an award to an antisemite would seem to be the opposite of King’s message. That’s obvious.
At least it’s obvious if you have a functioning mind, capable of critical thought, and aren’t suffering the brain decaying condition known as “wokeness.” That condition robs you of any ability to be intellectually honest and substitutes any sense of honor, integrity, or aversion to hypocrisy, with a cultish devotion to its contradictory dictates.
The University of Pennsylvania gave this award to a woman named Dorothy Roberts. She is a professor of sociology and law.
The announcement for the event said that “The 23rd Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture in Social Justice proudly presents Dorothy Roberts as she reflects on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Among others, it was sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies and the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society.
You can guess the ideological leanings of the organizers.
Roberts, just 11 days after the Hamas massacres of 10/7, tweeted:
‘Collective punishment of two million civilians, nearly half of them children, is a moral catastrophe to which current U.S. policy critically contributes.’ I was morally compelled to sign this US legal scholars’ letter.
What was this letter?
Signed by 178 members of the faculties of America’s law schools, it claimed that Israel was committing “internationally supported genocide,” referred to Israel as “an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law," claimed that Gazans "face genocide and ethnic cleansing,” and repeated the lie that the population of Gaza was being deprived of the “basic means of survival,” including water, food and electricity.”
Amazingly, this letter was written on October 16, 11 days before Israel’s ground offensive against Gaza began.
If you’re the kind of person who is fascinated by stupidity, you can read the full letter here.
Previously, Roberts had expressed her support of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions idiocy (BDS) movement (even if she can’t spell, see the link), and claimed that Jews are white because we supposedly all have power, or run the world, or the banks…or something.
The bottom line is that this obvious bigot hates Jews and shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near anything with MLK’s name on it. Or be allowed near any classroom in the future.
Oh, and she opposes adoption because she thinks…wait for it… it’s “racist”!
Of course she does.
The entire thing was, as I said, egregious.
Another one is, also as promised, egregious and heinous.
Heinously disgusting.
Cornell University has a PhD student instructor named Alyiah Gonzales. I am sure that the irony, and cultural appropriation, of her first name escapes her completely.
This fine specimen of intersectionally driven achievement said recently that Israelis should "rot in the deepest darkest pits of hell.”
More recently, she cancelled her “English” class in “"race, writing, and power” (of course).
Why?
In her words it was: “in solidarity with collective calls for a Global Strike for Palestine.” She went on to say that she "mourn[s] the fact that all universities in Gaza have been destroyed or demolished by Israeli military forces." In lieu of class, she asked her students to write an essay on "the relationship between writing, power, and systems of oppression."
Blah, blah, blah. They all sound exactly the same.
This is the same Cornell at which a junior was arrested for posting messages saying that he was going to "bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews." That was in October.
Another Cornell professor named Rusty Rickford, a history teacher, praised the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, while saying that it was “exhilarating” and “energizing.”
Rickford was not formally punished, but instead “went on leave.”
Will the same thing happen to Gonzales? I would say no. She is higher up the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) hierarchy. I don’t think they will touch her. I hope that I am wrong.
In fact, the only recognition of Gonzales’ behavior came from the provost of Cornell, Michael Kotlikoff. He issued the usual weak, meaningless, jargon laden, uselessness saying “Canceling classes as a political call to action, or using one's role in instruction to promote a personal or political belief, diminishes our role as educators."
Once again, the statement has nothing to do with Jews, Israel or “hate speech,” and instead is about their own narcissism and fear that they will be pressured to go the Liz Magill route (again, she resigned but is still on salary, and teaching at the school).
Even more concerning than her call to cancel class, and Cornell’s refusal to treat it as what it is: an attempt to draw her students into her own web of antisemitism, is the fact that Gonzales was ever hired in the first place, and wasn’t fired long before this point.
Just since Oct. 7 she has posted a series of deeply antisemitic posts. These include saying "Me, personally, I think the fuck ass settler state of Israel and all those complicit in genocide and occupation can rot in the deepest darkest pits of hell…”
Remember, this person is teaching English.
In November she said “If you've been silent and wallowing in ignorance … wake up and stand tf up, I will forever stand in solidarity with the Palestinian peoples—land back means LAND BACK, period. … WHERE IS YOUR RAGE? RESIST. RESIST. RESIST.”
Gonzales also has a history of posting antisemitic words/images on Instagram. Two examples, of many, are below.
In one she refers to the worst attacks on Jews since the Holocaust as “decolonization.” In the other, she posted an image of a Hamas paraglider, the type used on Oct. 7, and said “Freedom has only ever been achieved through resistance. Stand with the Palestinian resistance.”
I don’t know about you, but I am so sick of these little twerps referring to the mass murder of Jews as “resistance.” They are narcissistic, arrogant, pretentious people playacting at adulthood.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Gonzales’ Cornell bio claims that she is “dedicated to the queer, coalitional, and transformative possibilities of literature written by, for, and about Black womxn,” and her “research” is in "Black feminism," "Black womxn's literature," "queer theory," and "intersectionality studies."
Note the absurd, cultish, use of the letter “x” in women.
In her spare time, again according to her own bio, she likes to write “fantasy novels” and also write about herself in the third person. She says that she is “an unhinged zillenial who spends most of their time escaping into fantasy through both reading and writing,” and that “Iced Coffees, mean cats, and colorful hair make up the bulk of Alyiah's life.”
Most of “their” time. It's all so insufferable.
These are not intelligent people.
The only valid resistance here is forceful resistance to people like Roberts and Gonzales, their insanity, their bigotry, their dishonesty, and their ability to spread ideologically driven crap through our schools, turning kids across America into antisemitic, unthinking, ignorant members, not of a productive society, but of a dangerously obedient cult.
Never give in. Never give up.
Am Yisrael Chai.
This article also appeared in the Elder of Ziyon.
You don’t pull any punches! Good on you!!