According to the Jefferson Council, an alumni community dedicated to protecting Thomas Jefferson’s reputation at the ancient university, the University of Virginia “has willfully ignored its historic hatred issue” and must handle it right away.
Following the Hamas murder of Israeli citizens on October 7, 2024, the alumni group just released a 13-page statement authored by committee president Joel Gardner that asserts antisemitism has been “exponentially exacerbated” on campus over the past year.
According to a report in the Washington Examiner, a learner” threatened his contestant with the tool when he returned to their off-campus home” after “waiting inside his Israeli housemate’s room with the tool.”
A table in the report shows how much outperforming Islam and Christianity are reported incidents of religious-based partiality, discrimination, and abuse at UVA over the past eight years.
The College Fix repeatedly asked UVA for reply, but UVA refused to respond.
A UVA alumna Gardner claimed in an email to The College Fix that President Jim Ryan “has exhibited a severe lack of concrete management in addressing the numerous major racist incidents at UVA.”
” I’ve heard from school leaders that they fear their professors.” The instructors at UVA is largely of a left-wing bent. Some, if not most, are more friendly to the Arab reason”.
An example from a pro-Palestinian protest next fall is one that is cited in the report. A Jewish doctor claimed in a letter to Gardener that he was “horrified” by the demo and that he” could not believe they allowed masked protesters to march down the yard yelling disturbing slogans.
He pointed out that they never would have permitted demonstrations wearing white faces and bedding.
shouting sexist phrases to a protest like that. He understood why so many kids would be there.
frightened by this event because he believed the entire incident to be frightful,” according to the report.
Although Gardner’s report highlighted the dramatic increase in racist incidents following the attacks on October 7, the report stated that even prior to that, “antisemitic discrimination occurrences were 43 % of the complete and almost twice as many as the second highest category.”
“]T] he quantity of racist incidents in 2023-24 only is equivalent to all Islamophobic
situations for the entire 7-year phase combined. And still, our management seldom if ever
mentions hatred without referencing Islamophobia in the same word”, it stated.
A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League informed The College Fix that UVA received an” F” on its study of the school’s compliance with its obligations to Jewish individuals, which included “having high rates of severe and non-severe incidents in relation to number Jewish student people, a pro-BDS voting passed by the scholar state, and hostile anti-Zionist scholar groups on campus.”
Additionally, a class spokesperson told The Fix via email that UVA lost items for” not having hatred included in its Code of Conduct, non-discrimination plan or related policies” and for” not providing mandatory hatred training for all members of the school community.
However,” the grade was updated to a D in June 2024 for the University’s swift response in handling the Spring 2024 encampment”.
According to Gardner’s report, the administration created a” Task Force on Religious Diversity and Belonging” rather than “recognizing” antisemitism, again failing to specifically designate it as a problem and devoting themselves to the sacrifice of moral equivalence.
Gardner noted in his statement to The Fix that” [d ] espiting the fact that Jews have been the most oppressed group in history, about 40 % of whom were slaughtered worldwide less than 80 years ago, Jews are seen by DEI programs as oppressors.”
There is no denying that antisemitic acts are treated much differently from those committed against perceived oppressed groups, as evidenced by my article’s specific examples. Antisemitism is the natural product of the DEI narrative, Gardner said, and the current administration has been defined by its double standards in numerous instances.
When asked to clarify the criticism that addressing antisemitism might stifle legitimate political debate, Gardner argued that a” civil and academic debate on the Israel/Palestinian conflict can take place without resorting to harassment, intimidation, threatening behavior, and illegal activities.”
He claimed that “you don’t notice throngs of masked Jewish students oozing and urging the destruction of Islamic nations.”
According to Gardner,” It would be interesting to find out how much money UVA receives from Middle Eastern sources” that UVA may have self-interested justifications for failing to combat antisemitism on campus.
MORE: UVA rejects calls for faculty and student divestments from Israel
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