Boston University event features speakers who cast Israel as 'uniquely malignant'
Boston University School of Law hosted a symposium featuring academics who have been outspoken critics of Israel, prompting backlash.
Critics say several speakers have histories of inflammatory statements about Israel, raising concerns that the university is legitimizing extremist rhetoric.
On Nov. 14, Boston University (BU) School of Law hosted an event that involved academics who have been sharply critical of Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza.
One event during the “Symposium” at BU Law, entitled “Universities, the Empire, and Academic Freedom,” promised to debunk the US’s relationship with Israel.
“Recent suppression of pro-Palestine advocacy—through expulsions, disciplinary sanctions, and the weaponization of antisemitism charges—demonstrates institutions’ active role in reinforcing the U.S.–Israel alliance,” the description of the panel states.
Speakers at the symposium include Sahar Aziz, a professor of law at Rutgers, and Michel DeGraff, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Both have previously come under fire for comments they made about Israel.
Aziz’s website describes an instance where she joined a panel purportedly explaining “how the erroneous IHRA definition of antisemitism is promoted by pro-Israeli Zionist special interest groups seeking to shield Israel from political criticism, in violation of First Amendment prohibitions of viewpoint-based state regulation of speech.”
DeGraff has also made headlines for anti-Israel advocacy. His Canary Mission page explains that he has “justified Hamas terrorism, spread anti-Semitism and called for the elimination of Israel in October 2023.”
An automatic response from DeGraff’s email explained that he does not have “bandwidth” to respond to “hate mail from pro-genocide Zionists.”
“As of November 14, 2024, I am no longer faculty at MIT Linguistics,” the email continued. “I’ve been removed from my academic unit of 28+ years and now I am ‘Faculty at large’ in MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences.”
Sara Coodin, the Director of Academic Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, described the event at BU Law as “deeply disturbing,” according to Jewish News Syndicate.
“This is one further step at BU to institutionalize radical Jew-hatred,” added lawyer Douglas Hauer-Gilad.
“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 added.
“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,” Coodin concluded.
Campus Reform has contacted Boston University, Michel DeGraff, and Sahar Aziz for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
