CUNY anti-racism conference promoted panel titled 'Globalize the Intifada!'
One now-deleted panel at an upcoming City University of New York anti-racism conference was titled 'Globalize the Intifada!'
An upcoming City University of New York anti-racism conference promoted a panel titled “Globalize the Intifada!” before deleting it after facing criticism.
Several departments within the City University of New York plan to host an “Engagement, Equity & Antiracism: Teaching Writing at our HSIs, Then & Now” conference on Feb. 16, which includes the now-deleted session on globalizing the intifada.
”Globalize the Intifada! Mapping Struggles for Palestine between the Streets and our Classrooms,” read one now-deleted session title within the conference.
According to a session description, “This panel will bring together organizers at Lehman College and the Bronx, and across CUNY and New York City, to highlight how students, workers, and our communities can act in solidarity to achieve justice for Palestine.”
Britt Munro, an instructor at the university, was slated to moderate the session.
The session was first reported on by Jonathan Harounoff, Middle East journalist & communications director at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
(Image Credit: Jonathan Harounoff/X)
CUNY appeared to have changed the event title after criticism, which now reads “Mapping Struggles for Palestine between the Streets and our Classrooms.”
A description for the conference reads: “This conference imagines the possible futures of writing and writing instruction at Lehman College and Hostos Community College by reflecting on the affordances and limitations of teaching writing across the disciplines in our classrooms today, as well as on the genealogy of writing instruction at our Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Bronx.”
[RELATED: Rutgers student gov gave SJP over $20,000 for Palestinian ‘teach-in,’ national conference, and more: EXCLUSIVE]
The conference will be hosted by the Lehman College Writing Across the Curriculum program, Hostos Community College Writing Across the Curriculum, Lehman College Institute of Literacy Studies and the New York City Writing Project. Lehman College operates within CUNY.
Lehman College’s Writing Across the Curriculum program “takes an antiracist and decolonial approach to writing pedagogy,” according to its description.
Jane Kehoe Higgins, Director of the Lehman College Institute for Literacy Studies and sponsor of the conference, told Campus Reform that the “Globalize the Intifada! Mapping Struggles for Palestine between the Streets and our Classrooms” panel has been cancelled.
“The Writing Across the Curriculum program is dedicated to bringing love to the classroom, a more human approach to teaching and learning. The Engagement, Equity and Antiracism conference is meant to support professors in teaching students who are struggling, with pedagogy at the center. The goal is to bring people together, not to cause harm or make students feel unsafe. It is not a podium for protest. After discussion with the panelists, I do not believe we share the same goal. There are appropriate venues for them to share their views, but this conference is not one of them and the panel has been cancelled,” said Higgins.
Campus Reform reached out to CUNY and Munro for comment.
