In Academe, Should Anti-Semitism Be a Fireable Offense?

There is certainly a double standard here.  But it is probably because Karega is black.  The college needs her to get their racial quotas up.  But otherwise she should certainly be fired -- not on speech grounds but for incompetence as a scholar

Lately it seems like all anyone’s Jewish grandparents talk about these days is the pervasive anti-Israel sentiment found on college campuses in the U.S. In actuality, however, I’ve found that the silent majority actually doesn’t care that much either way. So while BDS campaigns and solidarity activism between pro-Palestinian and other leftist groups aren’t “fun” for students who choose to cultivate political views more nuanced than those of an eggplant, they also aren’t threatening to us, whether we agree with them or not. And I go to Columbia.

Occasionally, though, the discourse can descends from legitimate to dangerous. I’m talking about flat-out, no-holds-barred, in-your-face anti-Semitism. And when that monster rears its head, I’m left scratching my own.



Recently, Joy Karega, a rhetoric and composition professor at Oberlin College, was revealed to have posted wildly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content, often in the form of conspiracy theories, on her personal Facebook page. According to Karega, the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, was the true mastermind of last year’s Charlie Hebdo massacre; ISIS is the product of a CIA-Mossad collaboration; the IDF shot down that Malaysian airliner over Ukraine; and Jews were behind the attacks on 9/11.

Karega’s views are vile and racist. And yet she is still employed, still teaching.

In response to calls for her dismissal, Oberlin president Marvin Krislov—a self-described “practicing Jew” and “grandson of an Orthodox rabbi” whose family members “were murdered in the Holocaust”—defended Karega. In an email to Oberlin’s student body, Krislov wrote that even though he understands Karega’s views “cause[d] pain for many people—members of our community and beyond,” she would be keeping her position because of her right to express “personal views.”

When I read Krislov’s comments, I thought maybe I wasn’t seeing clearly. The fact that her anti-Semitism isn’t seen as grounds for firing her—when other professors at other universities who’ve engaged in similar, if much less deliberate, prejudices or offenses against other minority groups are dismissed immediately—speaks volumes to the double standard to which Jewish students are held.

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