|
Trending Topics
|
University of Vermont Earns Federal Probe over Antisemitism
(Boston Herald) Jeff Robbins - A University of Vermont teaching assistant wasn't content to merely bully Jewish students who identified with Israel. She boasted about it publicly, chortling on social media about her threats to reduce the grades of Jewish kids for whom Israel has personal meaning. When an Israeli flag was stolen from an off-campus student house, the TA heartily praised the vandalism. "Who stole the Israeli flag," she tweeted, "I just wanna talk and tell you how cool and special and loved you are." Last year, UVM students organized a group to support victims of sexual harassment. When Hillel, the Jewish student organization, posted a statement of solidarity, the anti-sexual harassment group rejected it, claiming to "follow the same policy with Zionists that we follow with those who troll or harass others: blocked." After a group of students spent 40 minutes throwing rocks at the windows of the Hillel Jewish students' campus center, the university insisted that there was nothing anti-Jewish about the attack. In response to a quite detailed complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the U.S. Department of Education has opened a formal investigation into whether UVM has fostered or permitted a hostile environment for Jewish students, in violation of the federal civil rights laws. The writer is a former U.S. delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission.