ANALYSIS: The University of Maryland’s medical school cited flimsy” health concerns” to defend the abrupt withdrawal of a speak by an Israeli doctor. Messages obtained by The College Fix, yet, show little , information of genuine health concerns
A College Fix assessment of more than 250 pages of letters found much to back up the claim that was made when the University of Maryland School of Medicine canceled a lecture by Israeli Defense Forces physician Elon Glassberg.
After Dr. Glassberg, a doctor and officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, made the announcement, university leadership immediately canceled the event, according to the previously obtained emails. The Council on Islamic Relations recently took funds for getting the occasion cancelled, as reported by The Fix.
The organization claimed that its members had sent 6, 000 emails to the head of the headmaster and surgery department within hours. Since the Fix’s request for public records only included emails from January 13 through January 16, they are likely to have been sent before. But, none of the emails obtained by The Fix discuss CAIR exclusively. Repeated efforts to get responses from the university ended up with either no response or vague replies regarding” safety” issues.
In a review from Associate Dean for Public Affairs and Communications Christopher Hardwick, one statement obtained by The Fix lists” threatening request information.” That piece was left out of later connections.
The pain program director had used a “reaction” as one of the causes of the event’s cancellation.
On Tuesday, January 14, Dr. Thomas Scalea, the pain program director, wrote to Glassberg,” I am writing to regret for canceling our scheduled visit with you and your Grand Rounds presentation.” ” Probably, I should have anticipated a backlash when I/we invited you to explore but I did not”.
We received some letters that worried me about my personal health and that my conversation might be halted, according to Dr. Scalea. I made the decision to withdraw the attend for both of those factors, along with the Chair of Surgery.
Scalea initially backed the idea, first proposed by Dr. Samuel Galvagno, calling it a” better plan” in an Oct. 2024 contact. Galvagno did not respond to a demand for comment on the situation.
Dr. Christine Lau, the head of operation, sent a slightly different email on Wednesday, January 15th, morning. She cited the possibility of” some conversation” along with health problems in her message to Glassberg.
When I spoke with Dr. Scalea, I learned that there might be security concerns that we might not have anticipated or get ready to handle. ” I’m truly sorry,” I ask,” Please know this was out of an abundance of caution.”
After the message, Lau continued to work through the problems, as just some professors received the first statement on the Friday before, while others received it on Monday due to an error.
Lau wrote to executive Stephanie Jordan, saying,” Key here… I didn’t see it until Monday.”
A review of a College Fix review found that neither Lau nor Scalea’s letters contain any explicit challenges.
Lau individually wrote to BertO’Malley, the president and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center, for never thinking about the “potential consequences” of the occasion. Lau claimed in a separate message that she had not been informed of the incident until January 13 but that her own letter refutes that statement. She had actually been copied on the event’s first arranging contact on October 23, 2024.
She did not respond to two contacted requests for comment from The Fix about how the “ramifications” may change if the college rescheduled the event. Additionally, The Fix twice in the past year via email asked her about the danger of “debate” canceling the event and for more details about the health problems.
Only three letters in opposition to the occasion were sent to Dean Mark Gladwin or Dr. Lau, according to The Fix, all of which came after the school had now decided to halt the event. Two appeared to be from group people. Additionally, an unnamed teacher sent Associate Professor Anuj Gupta a text to voice her concerns about the speech. The text was then passed on to Lau, but it only became apparent after the choice to withdraw had been made.
By comparison, the college received criticism from the Jewish ambassador to the United States, along with a Maryland representative, the Baltimore Jewish Council, and the Maryland Jewish Alliance, which generated lots of letters from its users.
According to an inner talking point word, the withdrawal occurred without Dean Gladwin’s knowledge.
The Dean’s Office did not know that this speech was invited to the royal shells until Tuesday, January 13, and the choice to omit them that day was made without the Dean’s Office’s knowledge, according to a notice. One added the word to information for a Zoom gathering on the morning of Jan. 16 that was to contain Drs. Along with Maryland Democrat Delegate Jared Solomon, who was against the revocation, were Lau, Gladwin, and Scalea.
Delegate Solomon did not respond to two email requests for comment in the previous month regarding any particular health problems that were raised during the visit. The Fix spoke to a employee on Tuesday night who said the member would answer.
None of Dean Gladwin, Scalea, or Lau responded to questions like this. Deborah Kotz, a representative, instead responded to The Fix‘s inquiries on behalf of all people. The Fix even reached out to school police Chief Thomas Leone to ask for more information about the risks.
Kotz’s first response failed to address the health concerns that were repeatedly posed to university leaders.
The Fix even independently asked Kotz to comment on whether the withdrawal is a form of the “heckler’s filibuster,” in which case a safety concern leads to an event being canceled, as it did with another university leaders. The Fix also asked which law enforcement officials had been consulted about the withdrawal.
While Dr. Glassberg has not yet agreed to a rescheduled time, Kotz told The Fix on Tuesday that many University of Maryland, Baltimore residents have reached out to him over the past few days to talk about this matter and re-extend our offer to hold his lecture. ” The offer continues to be opened.”
The Fix tried to reach Dr. Glassberg through the THOR Network, where he serves on the senior commission. A request to take a message to Glassberg was not received by the system. The University removed his contact address from The Fix‘s public information.
” As stated earlier, this lesson was intended to concentrate solely on medical improvements in trauma care”, Kotz said. Three weeks before the lesson was scheduled to begin, it was announced.
Without giving a specific answer as to the specific questions about what the health concerns were, “it became apparent to the management of the Shock Trauma Center and the Department of Surgery that they were not, themselves, able to adequately address any potential security and operational needs in such a little moment,” Kotz said.
The Fix followed up and asked for detailed information about the threats or at least if the school discussed the concerns with campus police or Baltimore County law enforcement. Additionally, The Fix shared obtained emails that revealed the event’s start-and-end discussions had taken place five days in advance.
Kotz requested a longer response time, but the follow-up did not, despite sharing Dr. Glassberg’s prior speaking at the medical school, offer any specific safety-related answers.
” When Dr. Glassberg was identified as a possible speaker in October, it was for a Grand Rounds academic session for the purpose of educating on innovations in trauma care”, Kotz said.
The Shock Trauma Center and Department of Surgery’s leadership did not take into account the need for more operational or safety planning than what is typically required to accompany a Grand Rounds lecture because Dr. Glassberg has been a frequent guest at our institution, Kotz said. ” Any ground level decisions made at the moment by departmental leaders reflected their best judgment in light of the circumstances and timing.”
The Fix had asked for specific information on the threats, offering possibilities such as a bomb threat.
A professor of free speech said universities should not postpone events because of safety concerns, but that they must “make good faith efforts to protect the expressive rights of the speaker.”
For instance, ensuring an adequate police presence and making arrests for those who engage in violence, Haley Gluhanich, a senior program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in an email to The Fix.
” If there are threats truly so serious that an institution feels it has no other choice but to cancel or postpone an event, then the institution must report those threats to law enforcement”, Gluhanich, who works on FIRE’s campus rights advocacy team, told The Fix. An institution also owes its campus complete transparency regarding the threats that occurred and the steps that were taken to address them before canceling or postponing the event.
Otherwise, rescheduling or postponing an event because a speaker is against it only encourages threats to upcoming events and dissuades speakers from coming to campus.
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IMAGE: Thor Network
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