The University of Vermont’s president’s message to his Jewish students: It’s your fault for the antisemitism on campus.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating the university over aiding and abetting a hostile environment for Jewish students, according to the Louis D. Brandeis Center, which combats campus antisemitism. The need for action is real.
Instead of condemning and fighting the antisemitism on his campus, the university’s president, Suresh Garimella, has blamed what he called “an uninformed narrative” that “is harmful to our Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni.” In a letter to faculty and students, Garimella observed that “there is no doubt that antisemitism exists in the world and, despite our best efforts, in our community.” But, he added, “exploitation of fear and divisiveness by advancing false claims that UVM failed to respond to complaints of antisemitic behavior creates confusion and a sense of insecurity for the entire community.”
This is an insult to students and the Jewish community in particular. Blaming Jews for complaining about antisemitism is in and of itself antisemitic. The Louis D. Brandeis Center is a reputable organization and would not have filed a complaint with OCR if the claims of antisemitism weren’t true. Garimella didn’t even condemn antisemitism, let alone the Jew hatred on his own campus. And the hatred is also real.
Consider that one of the incidents of concern involved a teaching assistant making antisemitic remarks on social media, such as asking whether it’s “unethical” for her to “give zionists [sic] credit for participation.” She threatened to take off points for students who went to Israel. Garimella’s response? He says that “the university took prompt action to ensure that the objectionable statements did not adversely impact students in the classroom and further, to perform a thorough review to ensure all grades were awarded on a non-discriminatory basis. No student reported to the university that this teaching assistant harassed or discriminated against them.”
In other words, the TA’s antisemitic social media posts were not problematic since they apparently didn’t come to fruition. But had the TA’s words targeted any other minority, even if they didn’t become reality, she would have been fired and expelled. A similar sentiment to such an incident would rightly be met with outrage. Note that Garimella didn’t say whether the TA was fired other than “the university’s response to the report was completed by September 30, 2021.”
Another incident saw UVM students throwing rocks at the Hillel building. According to Garimella, a quick campus investigation “determined that the students who threw the small rocks at a window of the Hillel building were doing so to get the attention of a friend who was convalescing in the building while recovering from an illness, that the throwing stopped after they got a student’s attention, and that there was no reported damage to the building. There was no evidence of any threatening behavior or that the conduct was motivated by antisemitic bias.”
However, according to the Louis D. Brandeis Center, that student “called out asking the perpetrators to stop.” In response, “one of the students responsible for the rock throwing shouted, ‘Are you Jewish?'” Regardless, the university’s investigation should be a red flag.
Two other incidents saw two student groups, UVM Empowering Survivors and UVM Revolutionary Socialist Union, saying that Zionists aren’t welcome. It should go without saying that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Garimella’s response was that the groups aren’t recognized and funded by the university and therefore “were not bound by UVM’s policies governing student organizations.” But even if the groups aren’t recognized and financially supported by the university, Jewish students deserve a campus environment that is safe and friendly.
Garimella’s blase attitude and anger about being challenged to do more say it all. Jewish groups have rightly condemned his letter. For failing to condemn and sufficiently combat the antisemitism on its campus, the UVM should lose access to federal funding in accordance with the 2019 executive order on combating antisemitism.
Either that or the federal government will send the message that failing to protect Jewish students isn’t a problem.
Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.
