Antisemitism and Free Speech on Campus

Sandeep Mangat
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Oct. 18, a truck with the message “DEAN JAMAL: WHY DO YOU CODDLE ANTISEMITISM” appeared on Nassau Street with photos of the recent terrorist attack in southern Israel. The truck circulated in town for three days during fall break, targeting Amaney Jamal, Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). The group in question has since apologized to Jamal, noting a previous statement she issued condemning Hamas.

The truck was sent by Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF), a group which claims to “counter antisemitism and the demonization of Israel on college and university campuses across the nation.”

Guest Contributors
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: We write as bereaved members of the Princeton community — faculty, students, alumni, and staff — to express our unequivocal outrage over the tragic loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives during the past week as the region seems to careen uncontrollably towards an all-out regional conflagration. There is never any justification for the targeting of civilians, whether it be assaults on Israeli towns or the aerial bombardment and total siege of the Gaza Strip.

Elazar Cramer and Yonah Berenson
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip killed, raped, kidnapped, and wounded thousands of innocent civilians in Israel’s Southern District on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. They took over one hundred and fifty civilians hostage, including American citizens, and they have threatened to begin executing them.

It brings us only distress to detail these horrific events, but we must because too few on this campus have expressed the repugnance that these murders must prompt.

Myles McKnight ‘23

Editor’s Note: Though the author of the following commentary is a part-time employee of Princetonians for Free Speech, the perspective below is his alone and does not reflect the views of PFS.

Many Princetonians have been paying attention to a recent controversy concerning Near Eastern Studies Professor Satyel Larson’s Fall 2023 course entitled The Healing Humanities — Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South. The controversy centers on Professor Larson’s inclusion of the book “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability” on her syllabus. Authored by Jasbir Puar, the book is controversial for its claim that the Israeli government intends the mass debilitation of Palestinians.

Keith E. Whittington
Academe Blog
 
Excerpt: It is not every day that a government minister writes to an American university president demanding that a book be immediately removed “from the curriculum of any of its courses” and that the institution “conduct a thorough review of the academic materials” used in its classes. But such is the demand that Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli has issued to President Christopher Eisgruber of Princeton University.

The professor might be wise or unwise in making such an assignment, and a professor might reasonably come in for public criticism for how they design or run their classes. But criticism must stop short of interference. If a work is relevant to the subject matter of the class, it does not matter whether others regard it as offensive or wrong.

Rebecca Cunningham
Daily Princetonian

A course offered by Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern studies (NES) has come under sustained criticism from off-campus publications and public figures in recent weeks due to the inclusion of the book, “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability” on the course’s syllabus. A description of the book describes it as arguing that Israel “relies on liberal frameworks of disability to obscure and enable the mass debilitation of Palestinian bodies.”

Critics, including a minister in the Israeli government, have argued that the book invokes the antisemitic blood libel trope, while others have defended the use of the book on grounds of academic freedom and human rights.