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Jewish professor files lawsuit accusing NJ university of Jew-hatred

A spokeswoman for Fairleigh Dickinson University told JNS that it denies the allegations “categorically.”

Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Florham campus, in Madison, N.J. Credit: Trinitarian Creek via Wikimedia Commons.

Ira Jaskoll, an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, alleges in a lawsuit that the private New Jersey school suspended him from a volunteer Jewish chaplain role after he denounced an anti-Israel event on campus.

Fairleigh Dickinson still lists Jaskoll as a faculty member and on a webpage devoted to its “yeshiva and seminary programs,” which allow Orthodox Jewish “yeshiva and seminary students to transfer various credits and earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in less than 15 months.”

Jaskoll alleges in the Superior Court of New Jersey that the school retaliated against him for decrying an event, in which a speaker accused Israel of “genocide” and being an “apartheid” state, the North Jersey Media Group reported.

The Jewish professor reportedly told the audience during the event that it discriminated against Jews and was told to leave. The school then suspended him until he apologized, per the report.

Dina Schipper, executive director of communication and news at Fairleigh Dickinson, told JNS that “we categorically deny the allegations of antisemitism put forward in this lawsuit.”

“Students, faculty and staff have been able to freely study and work at the university,” Schipper said.

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