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Editor’s note: During The Daily Orange’s process of fact-checking this article, the newspaper was able to confirm the legitimacy of the document discussed throughout the piece. Typically, The D.O. would have published the document itself alongside the original piece. However, during the process of confirming the document’s legitimacy, the paper found a litany of errors. With this, and the paper still trying to confirm much of the document, The D.O. made the editorial decision to not add a PDF version of the document to this article.

UPDATED: Feb. 8 at 11:20 a.m.

A group of Syracuse University students and parents have allegedly submitted a report to the United States House of Representatives alleging the university administration is turning “a blind eye to antisemitism, or giving no consequences for flagrant violations,” according to a release sent to The Daily Orange Wednesday.

The report is in response to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s establishment of a centralized reporting system in December 2023 for investigating antisemitism on college campuses in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The document is part of a larger filing involving 20 universities and colleges, according to the report.

Under Title VI, antisemitic harassment becomes a violation when the harassment creates a hostile environment where the conduct is “sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent so as to interfere with or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities or opportunities offered by a school,” the report stated.

The report lists 13 specific complaints of antisemitism, which illustrate “persistent” and “ongoing” incidents that created a “hostile and discriminatory” environment, as well as the university’s failure to address their occurrence.

A university spokesperson wrote in a statement to The D.O. that university leaders have said on multiple occasions that student safety is SU’s top priority. In a November University Senate meeting, Chancellor Kent Syverud said the university’s administration was prioritizing student safety over free speech and academic freedom amid the Israel-Hamas war.

“Consistent with our educational mission, we also permit the discussion and debate of difficult and controversial topics inside and outside the classroom, so long as our policies on impermissible harassment are respected in that process,” the spokesperson wrote.

Women and Gender Studies

The report alleges a visiting teaching professor in SU’s Women’s and Gender Studies Department “incorporated an antisemitic opinion” into an Oct. 12, 2023, lecture. The report states the visiting teaching professor referred to Israel as “Palestinian occupied land” and issued “defamatory condemnation of Israel” as an “oppressor.”

“Jewish students in the class felt very uncomfortable and attacked by (the teaching professor’s) slander of the Jewish state,” the report states.

Later that day, the teaching professor sent a follow-up email, acknowledging the student response and referred students to the website for Jewish Voice for Peace, which the report claims is a self-described Jewish organization that uses its identity to “directly confront the American Jewish community about its positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

On its website, JVP describes itself as a Jewish organization that stands in solidarity with Palestine. A Syracuse chapter was started in Fall 2016 and has been active in various demonstrations in the city and in Wednesday’s commemoration of lives lost in Gaza at the Schine Student Center.

“(The visiting professor’s) editorializing views about oppression and occupation, coupled with suggestions for aligning with Hamas and Palestinian interests and against Israel is hostile, antisemitic, and – especially in the time frame of being issued only five days after the outbreak of the most horrific war on Jews since the Holocaust — abusive of the teacher-student power dynamic by dismissing the Jewish-aligned view as illegitimate and disfavored and directing students only to resources antagonistic to Jewish supporters,” the report states.

In the report’s screenshot of the email and in its description of the lecture, the visiting professor makes no mention of Hamas.

A parent of a student in the class reported the incident to Gerald Greenberg, the senior associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences, according to the report. In response, the report claims Greenberg did not state that the visiting professor’s conduct violated university policy or standards.

“I can say that while we don’t prohibit members of the campus community from expressing their views, we have been encouraging our faculty to be more mindful of our students and what they are experiencing,” Greenberg wrote in an email to the parent, according to the report.

About a week later, the Women’s and Gender Studies department issued a “statement of solidarity,” which the report claims used “antisemitic, targeted, hostile and frightening language.” The report took issue with the statement not making reference to Hamas’ attack on the Re’im music festival on Oct. 7.

The report claims this statement “(violated) the use of University communication channels to convey personal opinions.”

Many parents and students contacted the university with concerns about the language of the statement, according to the report. One parent was told by an unidentified senior vice president of SU that they recognized the statement “violated the University policy when they posted their statement from a work-related platform” and that the remarks were “so profoundly antisemitic and offensive,” according to a Facebook post in the report from a parent whose name was redacted.

On Oct. 20, the university issued a public statement, which the report claims “downplayed” the language of the WGS statement in an attempt to “discount the significance of the Statement’s violative content.”

“The University allowed an official department to speak through its employees in order to represent an official position through official channels using University property. The University statement referenced no prohibition on the issuing employees continuing such conduct in the future,” the report states.

In the university’s statement, Provost Gretchen Ritter and Chief Student Experience Officer Allen Groves wrote that faculty and departments’ statements are permitted by principles of free speech and academic freedom.

“Any statements made by individual faculty or departments should not be interpreted as the University’s position,” Ritter and Groves wrote in the email, which is included in the report’s evidence.

On-campus demonstrations

The report references several demonstrations that have occurred on campus in response to the Israel-Hamas war. The first on-campus protest, titled “Shut it Down for Palestine,” was held on Nov. 9.

The report claimed the university did not properly handle its investigation into the “Shut it Down for Palestine” demonstration, at which administrators said a speaker called out specific Jewish student organizations “based on their identity” for being “complicit in genocide.” The investigation was deemed inconclusive, according to the report, but the report alleges there were no advertisements or tip lines to report information for the investigation.

“If the speaker could not be identified, it was because the University made no effort or did not want the speaker’s identity to become known,” the report states.

A speaker did criticize specific Jewish organizations for their participation in an event hosted by Hillel and Athletes for Israel in which they shipped household and medical supplies to Israel. The speaker also stated that the university should not have allowed the event to happen.

“Reports alleging harassment that creates a hostile educational environment or threats of violence against any person or group based on shared ancestry, religion, nationality, ethnicity, or race, or other protected characteristics are taken seriously by Syracuse University,” the university spokesperson wrote in its statement to The D.O.

The report also takes issue with a letter that was prominently displayed at the School of Architecture on Nov. 14 which did not mention the Oct. 7 attack or other “salient facts” relating to the Israel-Hamas war, the report states.

The letter — addressed to Dean Michael Speaks, Associate Dean Kyle Miller, Professor Daekwon Park and Professor Julie Larsen — asked for the School of Architecture to release a statement “condemning the genocide occuring in Palestine,” according to the report’s evidence. The letter also said “so many, including Palestinian Israeli, Muslim and Jewish faculty, staff and students in our school are suffering.”

“As an architecture school responsible for training the next generation of designers, it is crucial that we recognize the role for the built environment in perpetuating settler colonialism,” the letter reads. “We call on you to take responsibility for your silence and support your students in calling for an end to Israel’s apartheid regime and colonial occupation of Palestine.”

In response, Speaks thanked the writers of the letter for a “thoughtful communication” and assured students that Syracuse welcomes students to express views and discuss issues, according to the report’s evidence.

The report claims the writers of the letter were “praising antisemitic communications acknowledged by the University to be ‘reprehensible’” and “placing students in fear based on their Jewish identity.”

“Dean Speaks’ approval and encouragement of the letter is hostile, discriminatory and antisemitic,” the report states.

The report also discusses flyers distributed in December 2023 with QR codes that led to websites of materials distributed by US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Shut It Down For Palestine, which are both not registered as student organizations at SU.

“As these were not approved student organizations subject to University compliance and oversight, and they express hostility toward Jewish interests coupled with disabling the ability to communicate and travel, the appearance of these flyers reasonably made Jewish students feel unsafe,” the report states.

The report references pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Schine Student Center throughout December 2023. The report states many students wore Palestinian flags, waved signs in support of Palestine, chanted and wore face and head coverings.

“The loud chanting in unison by masked protestors, coupled with the shoulder-to-shoulder human chain formations made access to and use of the Schine Center difficult, uncomfortable and frightening for Jewish students,” the report states.

In December 2023, students in the Schine atrium were participating in a “study-in” for final exams that began on Dec. 11. Students were wearing signs with phrases, including the word “intifada” which is typically used to mean “uprising” but is directly translated in English to “shaking off.”

On Dec. 14, SU Vice President for the Student Experience Rob Hradsky told the student wearing the sign that they needed to take down the poster and, if they did not, it could result in charges related to the Student Conduct Code. The Instagram account blackatcuse posted several videos from the interaction — alleging Hradsky engaged in “physical intimidation” of the demonstrators without providing a university policy prohibiting the demonstration.

The account posted a petition which gathered over 850 signatures calling for an investigation into SU Associate Director of Facility Operations Rebecca Bruzdzinski and Hradsky.

Classroom interactions

The report claims a teaching assistant “prominently” displayed a poster and “encouraged” students in their class to attend the Oct. 20 “Protest to End the Gaza Occupation” in Syracuse. The report states their actions were an “abuse of power” and an “unwarranted and hostile insistence on adherence to antisemitic views.”

During a discussion for another class, a professor projected a list of questions that were related to the “current war in Palestine,” with one specifically inquiring about the “difference between violence and self-defense or counter-violence,” according to a photo included in the report.

One student told the professor she was uncomfortable addressing the points without including the information that “Hamas initiated the massacre and kidnapped hundreds of hostages, and raped, tortured and assaulted civilians in Israel,” according to the report. The report alleges the professor called the student’s commentary “lies and propaganda.”

The student filed a bias claim following the incident, and was later contacted by a university vice provost, the report states.

The report also includes a video of a separate professor delivering a virtual lecture in which they attempted “to create justification” for Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, according to the report. The professor claimed Hamas’ actions did “not meet the definition of ‘terrorist,’” but later characterized the Israeli military as “terrorists,” the report states.

“Further, the professor described the Israeli military as ‘terrorists,’ qualifying that judgment as a ‘fact.’ To wit, (they) stated [again, labeling as fact, not opinion]: ‘when we’re talking about what is terrorism, we don’t talk about war as terrorism, but that’s dropping bombs on people – that is terrorism,’” the report states.

The report states the professor was “believed to be” Renée de Nevers, an associate professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. In a statement to The D.O., de Nevers wrote that she was not the professor included in the video and that she has received hate mail and harassment as a result of the misidentification.

“To be clear, Professor Renee de Nevers was misidentified in the recent report. Professor de Nevers was not involved in the video cited in any way,” Senior Associate Vice President for Communications Sarah Scalese spokesperson wrote in a statement to The D.O.

The report suggests that the professor’s “unhalting readiness” to share WGS’ statement of solidarity demonstrated the university’s inadequate measures to “discourage further dissemination.”

In early November, a parent reported that her daughter’s unnamed professor “blamed Israel” and when a student responded by asking the professor to declare Hamas a terrorist organization, another student stood up and told them to “shut the f*ck up,” according to the report. The report states many of the students in the class became upset and went to Syracuse Hillel for consolation.

On Dec. 11, a teaching professor stated that their class was canceled as “part of a global labor strike to protest the increasingly genocidal conditions in Gaza,” according to the report. They also referred students to resources, which the report claims all aligned with Palestinian viewpoints.

University response

The university’s “failure” to address the occurrence of the various incidents listed is a consistent concern throughout the report.

The report states the university’s reasoning for the cancellation of a planned Middle Eastern studies scholar teach-in on Oct. 31 implied the Jewish community was “posing a safety risk to those interested in attending,” which the report states was unfounded.

Students and faculty were notified — the same day the event was scheduled — by Syverud and Ritter that, due to “safety concerns,” the teach-in would not go on as planned. In the campus-wide email, there is no mention that the Jewish community was part of the safety concern. Students and faculty involved in the teach-in took issue with how the university handled the event.

“These missteps elevated the safety risk to the Jewish community on campus,” the report states.

A community of parents and alumni with the organization End Jew Hatred wrote a letter on Jan. 2 with complaints regarding the university’s handling of antisemitism on campus, according to the report.

The letter took issue with a professor teaching a class that covers Israel and Palestine, raising concerns that the professor was biased against Israel. The letter doubted their ability to provide a comprehensive curriculum that addresses the “full spectrum of historical and contemporary realities on both sides of a conflict,” the report states.

The letter also discussed SU’s offer of employment to Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who graduated from SU’s College of Arts and Sciences with a master of fine arts in creative writing in 2023. Toha, who was detained by Israeli forces on Nov. 19, 2023, was released two days later following international coverage. Within 24 hours of his release by Israel, SU offered the poet a visiting scholar faculty position at the university through the Scholars at Risk network.

“Curious about the record timing of the poet’s employment offer, coupled with the seemingly growing collection of Palestinian-viewpoint faculty, parents and alumni became concerned about the dearth of viewpoint diversity issues and other issues this new hire presented,” the report states.

The letter also requested that Himika Bhattacharya, the chair of the women’s and gender studies department, be terminated. The report claims parents and alumni filed multiple complaints with the administration regarding her ability to “faithfully lead a department without recognition that the department statement was ‘profoundly antisemitic and offensive,’” the report states.

A change.org petition asking for the termination of Bhattacharya received over 7,700 signatures, as of 11 p.m. Wednesday. Senior Vice President for Academic Operations Steven Bennett stated in a Zoom meeting hosted by Syracuse Hillel with close to 1,000 parent participants that “he would not respond to or even acknowledge a complaint that came in the form of a petition,” the report states.

Regarding the petition, Bhattacharya wrote to The D.O. in November that she was unfairly singled out and that the WGS petition was collectively released by the department.

“(The petition) generated racist and anti-immigrant language, false accusations, defamatory remarks, hate mail, and violent threats against me,” Bhattacharya wrote.

The report alleges “countless” communications to the university regarding “violative” Jewish discrimination did not receive a reply from any SU official.

“We have a system in place to investigate such reports and, where warranted by our findings, impose appropriate accountability. We are confident that these University systems and processes, which comply with federal and state law, address any violations of our applicable policies governing students, faculty and staff,” the spokesperson wrote in the statement to The D.O.

Editor-in-Chief Anish Vasudevan and Managing Editor Kyle Chouinard contributed reporting to this article.

Published on January 31, 2024 at 1:39 pm

Contact Kendall: [email protected]