The compliance office at Seattle Colleges District, which operates three community colleges with 35,000 students, is reviewing an email that David Quintero, a tenured Spanish language and literature professor who has taught at Seattle Central College for three decades, sent to a faculty listserv stating that the school should not employ Israelis.
JNS viewed the email, in which Quintero wrote to colleagues that it is a “problematic security level” that “Zionist Israelis with dual citizenship are looking for work all over the world and the United States.”
“Now we are going to have racist, genocidal, rapist killers sitting next to us?” he wrote. “How do they passed the security background check? Are our institutions ready to apply the federal, state, county and municipalities laws that apply to our own citizens, most ethnic minorities, or are going to except these criminals?”
The Seattle Colleges District states in its social media guidelines, which it links from its homepage, that it won’t tolerate “threats or personal attacks” or discrimination on the basis of religion or national origin.
In its academic freedom policies, it states that it “has the right to impose, and has imposed, reasonable restrictions intended to maintain an efficient, professional,and ethical workplace” and that staff are expected to follow district policies, including on “discrimination and harassment.”
Hana Gala, a business management professor at the school, told JNS that “this is not the first incident.”
“There was one following Oct. 7 that was so nasty I had to raise my voice,” she said.
The listserv was “designed specifically as a platform that the administration does not oversee,” she told JNS. “However, it is still a platform hosted by the colleges,” and “as any employer, they are responsible for preventing a creation of hostile work environment.”
“I am the one always encouraging students to get comfortable with opposing ideas,” Gala said. “This is not it.”
Barb Childs, associate vice chancellor of public relations and strategic initiatives for Seattle Colleges, told JNS that the human resources department is handling the incident, and Adam Russell, director of marketing and communications for Seattle Central College, told JNS that the matter “has been referred to the district compliance office for review.”
“Per Seattle Colleges’ policies and procedures, the compliance office will assess the concerns raised and determine any appropriate next steps,” Russell said.
Randy Kessler, executive director of the northwest region for StandWithUs, praised the district for probing the professor’s “repugnant comment.”
“His demonization of ‘Zionist Israelis’ is a threat to the values that the Seattle Colleges community holds dear,” Kessler told JNS.
