The University of Pennsylvania recently laid off a communications lecturer—who published several antisemitic cartoons—amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on college antisemitism, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
Dwayne Booth, a lecturer at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication, announced his termination in a Patreon post on March 28, stating that the university told him “the reason was budgetary.” The dismissal coincided with the Trump administration’s decision to freeze $175 million in federal funding to the school, The Free Beacon stated.
“I was informed that the reason for the termination was budgetary, which I think is the same reason they gave to Jesus just before they crucified him, and Malcolm X just before they shot him, and what they told Eugene Debs, Susan B. Anthony, and Lenny Bruce just before jailing them. I jest, of course,” he wrote.
While he acknowledged that he was “not alone in the purge,” Booth lambasted colleges and universities that have been “way too complicit with the largely Republican-led efforts to target students and faculty members engaged in any and all speech,” including criticism of “the Israeli assault on Palestine.”
In February, The Free Beacon discovered that Booth was the identity behind online cartoonist “Mr. Fish,” who published several antisemitic cartoons since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
One cartoon showed Zionists in front of a joint American and Israeli flag drinking Gazan blood out of wine glasses, accompanied with the caption, “Who invited that lousy anti-Semite,” referencing a dove with an olive branch in its mouth to symbolize peace. The cartoon seemed to use the medieval blood libel against Jews.
Another showcased Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu covered in blood, holding a knife and a crumpled Palestinian flag, while a different cartoon depicted Jews in a concentration camp holding up signs that said “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza,” among others.
Larry Jameson, Penn’s interim president, called the cartoons “reprehensible” at the time but said he would not remove Booth from his position due to the school’s “bedrock commitment to open expression.”
Penn is just one of many universities taking steps to comply with the Trump administration’s executive orders in order to keep their funding after U.S. President Donald Trump withheld $400 million from Columbia University, citing a failure to respond adequately to Jew hatred on campus. Columbia recently agreed to the administration’s requirements but has come under fire for downplaying its commitment to implement required changes.