EXCLUSIVE — Top diversity, equity, and inclusion staffers at the University of Virginia appeared to immediately downplay outside concerns over a professor offering students extra credit to attend a rally about “how we can stand in solidarity with Palestinians resisting occupation,” emails show.
The emails were obtained by the Washington Examiner through the Freedom of Information Act and have not yet been reported. They provide an inside look at how officials at one of the top-ranking universities in the United States scrambled to determine how to respond to scrutiny in connection to UVA global studies and anthropology professor Tessa Farmer’s heavily scrutinized extra credit offer last year to students on Oct. 12, just five days after Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis in the Jewish state. In turn, two senior DEI employees at UVA seemed to dispute whether Farmer was actually providing that extra credit opportunity, which the office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said he was “very concerned” about, documents show.
“Internal emails show DEI staffers were apparently unperturbed by this professor’s promotion of a Students for Justice in Palestine event despite the group’s radical rhetoric,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books, a federal spending watchdog. The organization found through an analysis that UVA spent an estimated $20 million in 2023 paying the salaries of 235 staffers working in DEI-related roles.
“They appeared surprised the outside world found their divisive identity politics objectionable,” Andrzejewski said.
News of the emails comes as DEI offices at universities continue to come under intensified scrutiny from Republicans, who have likened the ideology to a form of discrimination due to DEI’s emphasis on viewing social interactions in terms of gender and race. The release of the emails could further expand open GOP-led investigations into antisemitism in Virginia on the heels of Oct. 7.
Now, the U.S. Department of Education is investigating threats made against Jewish students at UVA, according to multiple reports. The agency declined to comment.
UVA spokesman Brian Coy, the former communications director for the Democratic Party of Virginia, as well as ex-Virginia Democratic Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam said the school is cooperating fully with the investigation and “stands against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of discrimination and intolerance and strives to offer an environment where people from every walk of life are welcome and safe to live, learn, and work together.”
One third-year Jewish student at UVA, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with the Washington Examiner out of fears for his safety and of campus backlash, would beg to differ.
“I definitely am uncomfortable with the strong presence of Students for Justice in Palestine on grounds, as this organization’s premise focuses on the dismantling of Israel,” the student said. “Israel is essential to my Jewish identity.”
‘Morally reprehensible’
Tessa Farmer has taught at UVA since 2016. During that time, her course offerings in Charlottesville have included Using Anthropology, Global Development Studies, Culture and Society of the Contemporary Arab Middle East, and also Water Worlds: the Anthropology of Water. One disappointed pupil dubbed that last option in a fall 2023 review on UVA’s Course Forum website “one of the biggest mistakes I have made as a student” and “the most boring class I have ever had to sit through.”
In October of last year, Farmer sent a message to students that would later culminate in her name landing on the front page of Fox News. She offered students extra credit to attend a Students for Justice in Palestine event that the campus group said was “a teach-in and demonstration about the current situation in Gaza, the events and history that led to this moment, and a discussion about how we can be in solidarity with Palestinians resisting occupation.”
The so-called teach-in at UVA featured demonstrators who argued that “violent resistance” by terrorists was warranted “in the face of historical and ongoing oppression on the part of the Israeli state,” UVA’s student-run Cavalier Daily reported on Oct. 13.
“A few of you wanted more details about extra credit opportunities, so here are some updates and an event that a student asked me to pass along,” Farmer told students in a message one day earlier, on Oct. 12. “Whenever I see an applicable event, I’ll send out out a notice. If you know of an event that relates to class conversations/theme, please let me know and I’ll pass it along. For the extra credit, you would attend an event … and then write a reflection of 250-words tying the event to course readings.”
But just hours after that message was sent, a concerned member of the public named Stacey Blumberg fired off an email with the subject line “URGENT Professor Tessa Farmer offering extra credit for attending SJP rally” to UVA President James E. Ryan, the student affairs office, and other UVA officials, according to internal documents.
“I am writing to bring to your attention a deeply concerning matter involving Global Studies Professor Tessa Farmer,” Blumberg wrote in the email on the morning of Oct. 12. “It has come to my attention that she is offering extra credit to students who attend tonight’s event sponsored by SJP, an organization that released a statement on October 8th celebrating the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.”
Farmer’s decision was “not only morally reprehensible but also goes against the fundamental principles of inclusivity, respect, and academic integrity that our institution should stand for,” Blumberg told UVA in her email.
“While the SJP event is advertised as a teach-in, their October 8th statement makes it clear that it will promote anti-semitism and the destruction of Israel, and students should NOT be offered extra credit to attend,” Blumberg’s email read. “I implore you to thoroughly investigate this matter and take appropriate steps to ensure that Professor Farmer’s conduct is addressed immediately.”
What followed was a series of back-and-forth emails as UVA officials plotted how they would handle an impending firestorm.
Brie Gertler, the school’s vice provost for academic affairs, forwarded Blumberg’s email to Christa Acampora, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and its associate dean, Kerry Grannis.
“Dear Christa, lan asked me to make sure that you were aware of this,” Gertler wrote in an email on Oct. 12, appearing to refer to Ian Baucom, UVA executive vice president and provost. “He is consulting with senior leadership and Univ[ersity] Counsel on a response.”
“Are you free for a brief conversation about this?” Gertler asked Acampora, ex-deputy provost for academic affairs at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Blumberg’s email was further bounced around between other UVA staffers, including from Acampora to Keisha John, associate dean for DEI, records show. Acampora asked John, who took home a salary of over $202,000 in 2023, “Are you aware of this? Has there been any complaint that’s found its way to our office?”
John sent Blumberg’s email to Rachel Spraker, the DEI division’s assistant vice president for equity and inclusive excellence, along with an “FYI” note.
Spraker, who received a salary of over $186,000 in 2023, is best known by critics of DEI in Virginia, including the Jefferson Council nonprofit group, as the DEI staffer who recently appeared to blame “the toxicity of whiteness” for deaths in rural Appalachia, footage show.
‘Lack of moral clarity’
Spraker didn’t seem convinced it was clear Farmer sought to reward students to attend the SJP rally, where protesters accused Israel of genocide for retaliating against Hamas.
One speaker at the rally reportedly claimed there’s “no correct way for people to resist oppression” and another called the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, “the world’s largest open-air prison” because of Israel’s government.
“Let me know is there is something specific we can help with,” Spraker wrote to John in the afternoon of Oct. 12. “In reading the information it does not appear the professor is offering extra credit for attending the event. The event was a separate announcement. Is that correct?”
John agreed.
“That’s my read, but not the read of the person that sent the email,” John replied to Spraker minutes later.
On the same email thread, Spraker looped in top DEI division leader Kevin G. McDonald, who Open the Books found was paid a staggering $401,465 salary in 2023. The Blumberg email was also sent to Emily Springston, an administrator who earned $271,000 last year.
Spraker wanted to know why lawyers had to be handling the Farmer matter.
“I am not sure why counsel would need to be involved but sharing the information,” Spraker wrote to McDonald, Springston, and DEI division chief of staff Meghan Faulkner — who earned around $141,000 in 2023. Springston replied soon after, asserting that the counsel’s office is often pulled in to advise on First Amendment-related matters.
Coy, the UVA spokesman, disputed in a statement to the Washington Examiner that Spraker and John were downplaying Farmer’s extra credit announcement.
“This inquiry was taken seriously by the individuals you reference and by others, as evidenced by the fact that the concern was elevated to the leadership of the DEI office,” Coy said. “The fuller context of the exchange also makes clear that Ms. Spraker’s comment was an expression of unfamiliarity with the reason why such an email would be shared with the counsel’s office, and another more senior team member replied that it should be, and ultimately it was.”
A review by university officials found that Farmer “offered students multiple opportunities to earn extra credit over the course of the semester through writing reflection pieces expressing their own opinions on events they choose to attend, including this one,” according to Coy, a donor to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
Farmer’s extra credit policy “did not constitute an endorsement of this event or any other, and that, accordingly, such an approach was consistent with her academic freedom to conduct her course,” Coy said of the review.
‘Fear and frustration’
Meanwhile, after the flood of internal conversations at UVA, Fox News published a story on the evening of Oct. 12 about the Farmer matter titled, “College professor offers extra credit for rally ‘resisting’ Israeli ‘occupation,’ sparking state AG probe.”
The article included a message that Farmer later sent to students clarifying that she “did not intend to imply that there is a link between endorsing the viewpoint of the organization and receiving extra credit for the course.”
On the morning of Oct. 13, UVA went back to the drawing board as far as handling the fallout over Farmer’s extra credit message.
“Emily — are you aware of any additional guidance from university leadership about how to best handle conflicts arising amongst faculty, staff and students with regards to the recent Fox news article, potential protesting and the general state of global affairs and how it is impacting UVA?” UVA dispute resolution practitioner Amanda Monaco asked Springston over email. “Can you please loop me in if you do hear anything as I am starting to get questions about this?”
Springston, who copied McDonald, Spraker, and Faulkner on the email chain, replied, in-part, “There are lots of people engaged in different ways to monitor and manage, and will depend on the dynamics at play.”
To Andrzejewski, the Open the Books CEO, the “internal confusion and complete lack of moral clarity” that UVA exhibited internally is “what taxpayers get for $20 million.”
“It’s unacceptable for a public university like UVA — funded by taxpayers — to promote division,” Andrzejewski said.
But division appears to have only grown on UVA’s campus after Oct. 7.
That much was clear in a Nov. 3 email Springston wrote to those same three DEI staffers, McDonald, Spraker, and Faulkner, according to internal documents.
Members of the Jewish community at UVA were contacting Monaco privately to share their “fear and frustration and a desire for leadership to understand their experience,” Springston wrote to the trio on Nov. 3.
They also had “a desire to remain anonymous,” Springston emphasized. One person who hasn’t stayed quiet is first-year UVA student Matan Goldstein, who came forward this year about classmates reportedly calling him “a filthy Jew” and accused the university of not doing enough to protect Jews.
But not all feel as comfortable as Goldstein to speak out.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I am more hesitant to tell someone I am Jewish now because I do not know what their immediate reaction will be,” said the third-year student who spoke with the Washington Examiner.
“President Ryan makes appearances at Jewish events and gatherings to make it appear like he is an ally of the community, but it’s all for show,” that person added. “There are no measures taken to ensure Jewish support on grounds.”
