It is “deeply disturbing” that the Boston University School of Law held an event on Friday with an “overwhelming number” of sessions that made the “charge that nefarious actors are manipulating American universities,” according to the American Jewish Committee.
Listed speakers included Michel DeGraff, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor who allegedly harassed a Jewish student, and Sahar Aziz, a distinguished law professor and chancellor’s social justice scholar at Rutgers Law School, who referred in 2024 to Zionists “inflaming Islamophobia by accusing Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians of supporting terrorism.”
The session in which Aziz participated referred to “recent suppression of pro-Palestine advocacy, through expulsions, disciplinary sanctions and the weaponization of antisemitism charges” that “demonstrates institutions’ active role in reinforcing the U.S.-Israel alliance.”
Sara Coodin, director of academic affairs for the AJC, told JNS before the event that it appeared to be “deeply disturbing” and an effort to reduce “complex questions about the state of the American university to such a reductive ideological perspective.”
“This symposium, which features more than 50 individual speakers, claims to engage with questions about upholding democracy, but an overwhelming number of its sessions fall back on a single underlying charge that nefarious actors are manipulating American universities both from without and from within,” Coodin said.
“These claims, which are accompanied here by specific sessions that cast Israel and Zionism as uniquely malignant actors, hew closely to the classic antisemitic canards of Jewish power, malicious influence and control,” she said. “Those canards not only fail to exemplify critical thinking, they conjure its exact opposite—conspiracism.”
Douglas Hauer-Gilad, who has alleged that he was forced to resign from his position as an adjunct law professor at the university for protesting what he viewed as antisemitic social media posts from Aziz, told JNS that Aziz and DeGraff “lack civility in political discourse and both use social media to attack Jews.”
“This is one further step at BU to institutionalize radical Jew-hatred,” he said.
Colin Riley, executive director of media relations at Boston University, told JNS that the university is “committed to academic freedom, free speech and expression and creating an environment where views can be openly expressed and challenged.”
“Members of the university community host hundreds of educational programs, panels and conversations examining complex and sensitive topical issues in which we encourage respectful and constructive dialogue,” he said.
