Pitt’s Faculty Assembly postpones vote to create antisemitism committee
“We’re just going to wait another month for another Jewish student to be assaulted before making a decision?” he asked.
Attempts to create an ad hoc committee to investigate antisemitism at the University of Pittsburgh were temporarily thwarted during a Nov. 4 Faculty Assembly meeting.
Faculty Assembly President Robin Kear said the creation of the proposed committee was in response to an October discussion that focused on the “safety of the Jewish student community and the campus climate for Jewish faculty.”
The discussion followed two separate physical attacks against three Jewish University of Pittsburgh students.
In the month following the discussion, she said, the urgency around those attacks has not diminished; instead, people have brought additional antisemitic issues to the attention of the executive committee.
It is out of an “urgency of concern” for those issues, she said, that the proposed creation of the committee is rooted.
Faculty Assembly Vice President Kristin Kanthak said the idea that the university could solve antisemitism is a “moonshot,” but it was worth a try.
“This university is the place, where if it’s possible to move forward, this is the place it’s going to happen,” she said.
Kanthak said that the assembly has been inundated “with hair-curling stories of antisemitism from faculty, staff and students, and I don’t know what to do with them. They’re in my inbox and they are breaking my heart.”
The ad hoc committee would be tasked with: assessing the campus climate through engagement with various stakeholders, including students, student and community organizations, faculty, staff and administrative offices; conducting a review of antisemitic incidents and concerns on campus; analyzing procedures for reporting and responding to antisemitic acts; benchmarking practices for addressing antisemitism against other institutions; recommending enhancement to existing policies, educational programs and support systems; and, proposing new initiatives to promote understanding, tolerance, equality and inclusion to all regardless of religious belief or national origin.
The committee would not have the authority to impose a definition of antisemitism on the university community, nor would it be empowered to set limits on free expression on campus or limit free speech, including restrictions on teaching, scholarship or programming.
Following words of support by the proposed committee co-chairs, faculty members Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Eitan Shelef, conversation came to an unexpected halt when Bridget Keown, co-chair of the university’s Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee, introduced a motion to postpone discussion and the vote to form the committee until the group’s December meeting.
Keown said she, and other members of the EIDAC committee, were concerned that the resolution creating the committee did not define antisemitism, did not address the scope of the committee and did not spell out what constitutes success.
Members of the university’s LGBTQIA and transgender communities have also faced attacks on campus, Keown said, noting a committee wasn’t formed to address those incidents and that she was concerned about the message conveyed by creating an antisemitism committee.
After Keown’s comments, a vote on the resolution to create the antisemitism committee was delayed until December so various committees could review the resolution.
That decision prompted Ilan Gordon, one of two students attacked in August by a man wielding a bottle and wearing a keffiyeh, to speak out from the audience.
“We’re just going to wait another month for another Jewish student to be assaulted before making a decision?” he asked. “That’s going to be the end of the semester. What are we doing? Why are you all stalling? There needs to be a change now. This is ridiculous.”
Following his remarks, Gordon stood and left the room in frustration.
Gordon’s statement, Murtazashvili told the Chronicle, speaks to the dissatisfaction of students who complain to the school about antisemitic incidents but feel they get no response.
As to Keown’s complaint that the resolution didn’t contain a working definition of antisemitism, Murtazashvili said the committee was explicitly instructed not to define it.
“We didn’t want to get stuck with definitions of antisemitism,” she said. “We wanted to understand what’s happening with our students.”
And, Murtazashvili said, it’s “unheard of” to ask a minority group to define the terms of hate used against it before their grievances can be addressed.
In fact, Kear told the Chronicle, the University’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion already has a definition of antisemitism on its website. Antisemitism is defined it as, “The fear or hatred of Jews, Judaism, and related symbols.”
Two days after the issue was tabled, EIDAC held its November meeting.
Despite Murtazashvili’s concerns and the university’s definition of antisemitism, Susan Graff, co-chair of EIDAC sent a memo to members saying objectives of the meeting should include creating a suggested definition of antisemitism and to discuss the stated goals of the committee on antisemitism.
The EIDAC meeting, attended by committee members, students and members of the Jewish community — including Rabbis Danny Schiff and Seth Adelson, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Community Relations Council Director Laura Cherner and StandWithUs Mid-Atlantic Regional Director Julie Paris — was at times emotionally charged as supporters and detractors spoke.
Murtazashvili said that tabling the resolution to create the committee at the Faculty Assembly meeting had led to a “kind of silencing and shaming of the committee” and undermined the work of EIDAC, which is supposed to promote inclusion.
Prohibiting conversation, she said, is a violation of academic freedom and “seeks to intentionally hinder the work of a committee before it starts.”
Ruth Mostern, a history professor and member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said that Jewish Pitt students are not united on the issue of antisemitism and that there are profound disagreements about Israel’s war against the terrorist organization Hamas and the formation of the ad hoc committee.
Mostern said the creation of the committee was disturbing considering the arrests of Pitt students who have protested the war on campus, and that she worried about a committee focused solely on the harm experienced by Jewish students.
Murtazashvili noted that the proposed antisemitism committee would be an advisory committee with no ability to create policy or enact rules.
“This committee has no power to enforce or do anything,” she said. “It can only explore issues.”
Murtazashvili told the Chronicle that while the administration of the school is concerned about antisemitism, there seems to be a disconnect among some faculty.
“I’m beginning to lose hope,” she said. “To be honest, this lack of empathy was very surprising to see. It really feels like this reinforces feelings of exclusion and abandonment by the university while there is a fire burning beneath our feet.”
The faculty assembly will vote on the creation of the committee at its December meeting.
Several other universities have established antisemitism committees or task forces, including the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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