Brown University faces backlash over controversial speaker who attacked ‘Jewish lobby,’ excused Oct. 7 massacre

More than 2,000 members of the Brown University community and their affiliates have sent a letter to the Ivy League school urging it not to host a controversial anti-Israel UN official who has made many statements widely viewed as anti-Semitic. 

The letter states that Francesca Albanese, the UN’s “special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” is guilty of “blatant antisemitism and legitimization of terrorism.”

Albanese is currently scheduled to speak at a Sept. 16 event at Brown titled “Anatomy of a Genocide: A Failure of the International System?” that will be hosted by the school’s Center for Middle East Studies.

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Albanese’s past controversial statements include an X post published the day of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis that said: “Today’s violence must be put in context. Almost six decades of hostile military rule over an entire civilian population (incomprehensibly ignored by too many official statements & media outlets) are in themselves an aggression, and the recipe for more insecurity for all.”

The letter mentions several other past actions of Albanese’s, including sharing a letter in which she said the US is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” comparing Israel with Nazi Germany, taking part in a conference featuring Hamas terrorists in which she allegedly said terrorists “have a right to resist [Israeli] occupation,” and excusing terrorist targeting of Jewish civilians. 

Israel has prohibited Albanese from entering its territory following many of her statements. 

The Brown community members wrote that Albanese’s “blatant antisemitism and support for terrorism against Jews and Israeli civilians places the Jewish and Israeli communities on campus in a fearful and potentially dangerous situation.”

“We do not want our peers, however well-meaning and curious they may be, to learn from a speaker who actively promotes dangerous tropes and terrorism against our communities,” they added. 

Brown has recently found itself at the center of another controversy regarding the Israel-Hamas war. 

[RELATED: BDS-supporting Brown prof was previously head of school that supported ‘right of Palestinians to self-defense’ after Oct. 7]

On Aug. 26, 24 Republican state attorneys general wrote to Brown’s leadership, calling on the school not to divest from Israel. 

“If adopted, the Brown Divest Now proposal will have immediate and profound legal consequences for Brown, its employees, and its student body because it may trigger the application of laws in nearly three-fourths of States prohibiting States and their instrumentalities from contracting with, investing in, or otherwise doing business with entities that discriminate against Israel, Israelis, or those who do business with either,” they wrote. 

Campus Reform has contacted Brown University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.