John Cheney-Lippold
“U-M has a moral and legal responsibility to address discrimination on campus, and we hope it will take swift action to fulfill that obligation,” said board chairman of the Lawfare Project, a legal think tank.
The university announced that it will conduct a panel review consisting of “distinguished faculty members to examine the intersection between political thought/ideology and faculty members’ responsibilities to students.”
Pro-Israel groups are calling on the university to address the latest incidents, including a lecture comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and a second student denied a recommendation to study abroad in Israel.
The development comes amid two anti-Israel controversies at the university, including another professor denying a letter of recommendation to study in Israel and a photo used during a lecture comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
A letter supported by nearly 60 education, civil-rights and religious groups says “impeding a student’s ability to participate in a university-approved educational program in order to carry out political activism is reprehensible.”
According to John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the American Culture department, this was the first time he rejected a student’s request for a letter of recommendation to study abroad anywhere, as he labeled Israel an “apartheid” nation.
Although a BDS resolution was passed last year by the university’s student government, the administration itself does not allow its departments or any part of the school to boycott or divest from Israel, according to University of Michigan spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald.
