<p>I’m Jewish and had several (completely random-- not cause of any club) Jewish friends of varying practicing amounts. I never felt any anti-semitism while at school. I also never felt any problem in any economics or political science class (or any other class).</p>
<p>Just a few things I want to point out, because this is a personal and sensitive issue so I would hate to mislead you. </p>
<p>I despise that first professor (Alam). I seriously openly hate him. He might be a perfectly fine person, who knows. And I’ve had several (Jewish, in fact, but I doubt that matters) friends who LOVED his courses. I didn’t, I hated him. The only class I ever dropped out of was his Global Economy class after the first week. I was paying 5 thousand dollars to learn about the history of global economics, and yet he spent the first three courses just complaining about capitalism for an hour and a half. To make it worse, it was clear he was the kind of professor (and person) who not only is fierce about an opinion, but fiercely attacks anyone who disagrees with him no matter how well you support it. So I dropped it and never got to take the course, because he was the only professor to ever teach it. Again, some very kind friends loved it and loved how controversal he was. I didn’t and I did not like that he was the only professor to teach a class I wanted. I filled the core requirement instead by going to London, so no harm done.</p>
<p>Second, several professors they mentioned were Economics professors. And if a professor says something openly anti-semitic in a class, I’d probably complain to the department advisor. Students have gotten professors fired for purely being bad professors, so I’m sure an honest complaint about a sensitive topic would be heard. But sometimes people DO get touchy about a professor who doesn’t hide their opinions in an Economics class.</p>
<p>For example – the concept of environmental protection in economics is touchy. In economics, there is a very clear limit when it’s “not worth it” to stop pollution (its too expensive). But to very very environmental students in class, they will literally get in fights with professors over it. Another example is a very liberal professor making it obvious that they think regulation is a good thing. In a macro class, you’ll learn about the dozens of ways you can regulate an industry. To someone who doesn’t disagree-- that’s fine, you accept it as just what you learn in the class. But to someone who DOES disagree… they will complain that the professor is “pushing” liberal topics on them. Clearly, totally depends on the student and the situation. And whether or not you think a professor should totally run middle line is up to opinion. There is no right or wrong answer, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Lastly, I’ve heard fellow students complain about readings we were assigned because they misunderstood the point. Most professors will admit that college isn’t about learning facts, it’s about learning to debate and think and analyze. So I’ve gotten assigned articles that were horrible, that said things I flat out disagreed with, that I didn’t want to read. And the next day in class… people disagreed. Sometimes the professors played devil’s advocate and FORCED students to really come up with good reasons why they disagreed and really articulate it. So while some students would get angry that a professor was giving them controversal articles, I tended to understand that it was to get people to talk. I studied Stalin in high school and had to write two essays- one about how Stalin was evil and one about how he was Russia’s savior. Obviously you don’t agree with both, but that wasn’t the point. It was to think about it and understand why someone MIGHT agree with the other side.</p>
<p>Now, I don’t know why they assigned those articles. I don’t know why the professors (note that I only actually noticed two professors actually from Northeastern mentioned) quoted said things they did. I don’t know if they really are horrible or if they were playing devil’s advocate or if people have misunderstood. For all I know, the students from Hillel interviewed could be looking for their big break in fame or they could honestly feel hurt. Personally, I think in the video some lines that could be neutral are turned anti-semitic by the way the narrator says it. So when the student is being interviewed, all she says is that she didn’t know much about the topic except what her mother had told her, and she was excited to teach her mom about the actual history of the conflict because she didn’t think her mother knew about it. But with the narrator talking (and the abrupt cut off of the video), it sounds like the student is naive and is being influenced by a corrupt professor… Just my personal view of some of the video.</p>
<p>But like I said, I’m Jewish. I’ve never ever had a problem. I’ve never ever had a friend, of any religion, who felt attacked or hurt by what a professor said about religion or race. If I ever did, I’m 100% confident I could have talked to the head advisor of my major and he would have listened and talked to the professor. It might not be the case for every student, but I felt the need to just mention the three things above. I never took Sullivan, and I dropped out of Alam’s class because I knew I wouldn’t like him. </p>
<p>If someone has felt hurt by a professor at Northeastern, then I’m very sorry. I don’t think that represents the school or the faculty at all. I hope that if someone does, they will tell an advisor so that it can be taken care of. And yeah, if it WASN’T taken care of, then I’d throw a fit and get angry and demand that student’s concerns be addressed. But I haven’t felt any.</p>