The university recently deposed tenured law professor Katherine Franke as part of an investigation stemming from an interview she gave to “Democracy Now!” in January. During that interview, Franke was asked about allegations that two students who had previously served in the Israeli army had sprayed a chemical at their classmates at an on-campus rally for Gaza.
Franke, who has worked at the school for decades, responded by linking the incident to a documented pattern of on-campus harassment that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students have alleged for years.
“Columbia has a program with older students from other countries, including Israel,” Franke said, referring to the school’s General Studies program. “It’s something that many of us were concerned about because so many of those Israeli students who then come to the campus are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus, and it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past.”
The remarks set off a firestorm, with commentators suggesting that Franke was calling to ban all Israeli students from campus. Within a few days of the interview, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article titled “Columbia University Pushes Back Against Professor Who Vilified Israeli Students,” citing a statement from the university affirming its support for Israeli students.
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It is a truly disgustingly broken system that would seek to punish people for standing against a genocide.
And it’s astonishing that this happens in so many of the world’s wealthiest democracies. Criticizing Israel for its ongoing genocide will get you into a lot of trouble everywhere.
When I saw Bill Maher equate the student protests with being pro-hamas, I almost flipped my shit. I don’t understand what’s going on…
I find avoiding Bill Maher is good for mental health.
It’s not surprisingly really. They’re only so wealthy because of exploitation and allowing these kinds of things to happen because they were the ones that helped set up israel or whatever in the first place. They’re all allies because they have to be lest they lose access to resources and control or those nations turn their ire on them.
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Franke, who has worked at the school for decades, responded by linking the incident to a documented pattern of on-campus harassment that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students have alleged for years.
Franke is one of several Columbia staff to face investigation — many of whom have defended Palestinian rights — while the House Committee on Education and the Workforce continues to apply pressure on the school.
Recently, three deans were placed on indefinite leave for exchanging text messages the university says “touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.” Professors elsewhere across the country have had their livelihoods imperiled upon speaking out in defense of Palestinians.
In its statement to Haaretz on the heels of Franke’s “Democracy Now!” interview, a university spokesperson said, “We are disheartened to see some members of our community and beyond use this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis.
Rather, she wrote, she was voicing concern “about students coming onto our campus who have just completed their military service in Israel – the transition to civilian life – after having been taught that Palestinians are evil and want to kill Israelis/Jews – can be a rough one for some people.”
“It seemed clear to me that they had made their mind up already, coming into the deposition, that I was generalizing in a way that would make people who served in the IDF or Israelis feel bad, and so there’s a very good chance that they will fire me,” Franke said.
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Just a reminder:
Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza — (March 2024)
“Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing seriously serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group,” she [Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories] said.
Furthermore, “the genocide in Gaza is the most extreme stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure of the native Palestinians,” she continued.
For over 76 years, this process has oppressed the Palestinians as a people in every way imaginable, crushing their inalienable right to self-determination demographically, economically, territorially, culturally and politically.”
[…]
"I implore Member States to abide by their obligations which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel, and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself,” she concluded […]