EXCLUSIVE: Colorado State University paid Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour $7,000 for speaking engagement
Sarsour has been involved in multiple controversies that saw her being accused of anti-Semitism.
She had previously seemingly equated support for Israel with white supremacy, and did not mention Jews in a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Colorado State University paid Linda Sarsour, a controversial anti-Israel activist who has been accused of anti-Semitism, $7,000 for a 2024 speaking engagement, a document obtained by Campus Reform shows.
The university paid the $7,000 to Sarsour to be the keynote speaker for an April 3, 2024 speaking engagement, as shown in a university contract obtained by Campus Reform.
The keynote address kicked off the school’s Asian Pacific Islander Desi American & Southwest Asian and North African Heritage Month.
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Sarsour’s $7,000 honorarium covered, among other things, a “Round Trip Flight,” “Hotel accommodation,” and an “Iftar Meal with Students,” as seen from the contract.
The document states that the school’s “Asian Pacific American Cultural Center, the Women and Gender Advocacy Center, and RamEvents selected Linda Sarsour to speak and engage with CSU students in celebration of APIDA & SWANA Heritage Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.”
It describes her as an “award-winning racial justice and civil rights activist, seasoned community organizer, direct action strategist, and mother of three” who has “demonstrated her advocacy and democratic engagement through serving as one of the national co-chairs of the largest single day protest in United States history, the Women’s March on Washington,” and refers to her as an “excellent example of democracy.”
Sarsour has caused several controversies in the past, many of which led to her being accused of anti-Semitism.
Though she apologized in November 2018 for initially refusing to condemn anti-Semitism, saying that “[w]e should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism,” she followed up that statement with several controversial actions.
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In January 2019, Sarsour provoked controversy when she posted a statement about Holocaust Remembrance Day without mentioning Jews.
In December 2019, she seemed to equate supporting Israel with white supremacy, telling listeners at the conference of American Muslims for Palestine to ask leftist Zionists “how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.”
In September 2019, the Women’s March organization pushed out Linda Sarsour along with two of her colleagues off of the group’s board, after all three were mired in controversies related to anti-Semitism.
Campus Reform has contacted Colorado State University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
