Stanford students demand reinstatement of instructor who allegedly put Jews in a corner during class exercise
1,700 people have signed a petition demanding reinstatement of lecturer who allegedly put Jews in a corner of the room to illustrate a point about Israel's war against Hamas.
Stanford University students are demanding the reinstatement of an instructor who allegedly put Jews in a corner of the room to illustrate a point he was trying to make about Israel’s war against Hamas.
During an October 10, 2023 class session of college 101, an instructor allegedly asked Jewish students to go to a corner of the classroom before using them as an example, according to The Forward. Reports at the time identified the instructor in question as Ameer Loggins. This identification is corroborated by recent coverage from the Stanford Daily.
Citing several student accounts, Rabbi Dov Greenberg, director of the Chabad Stanford Jewish Center, told The Forward that the instructor asked Israeli and Jewish students to identify themselves, then told them to grab their belongings and stand in a corner, stating, “This is what Israel does to the Palestinians.”
“How many people died in the Holocaust?” the instructor asked. “Six million,” a student allegedly responded.
“Colonizers killed more than 6 million. Israel is a colonizer,” the instructor then said.
Jaeden Clark, a student at the university, told the Stanford Daily that over 1,700 people have signed a petition demanding the reinstatement of Loggins.
”On the 11th of October, Stanford University notified Dr. Ameer Hasan Loggins, a Black Muslim lecturer, that he would be put on administrative leave indefinitely and banned from coming to campus until further notice,” the petition states. “As Stanford University undergraduate students, we are writing to the university to demand the immediate reversal of his suspension.”
Leaders of the effort to get Loggins reinstated wrote that several media outlets “have been spreading dangerous misinformation about the situation.”
In addition to demanding Loggins’ reinstatement, the students also demanded a public apology, “employment and tenure of more Black and Muslim professors,” and “the development of a plan for a consistent and fluid conversation between Black students and the Department of African and African American Studies.”
The instructor allegedly said during the class session that “Hamas is a legitimate representation of the Palestinian people. They are not a terrorist group. They are freedom fighters. Their actions are legitimate,” Greenberg said.
Greenberg said that the students in question were scared to speak up and feared that their grades would suffer and were traumatized.
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In a statement following the incident, Stanford said that the instructor isn’t teaching while the incident is under investigation.
”We have received a report of a class in which a non-faculty instructor is reported to have addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities. Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern. Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students. The instructor in this course is not currently teaching while the university works to ascertain the facts of the situation,” the university said.
Campus Reform reached out to Stanford for comment.
