Don't go to this antisemitic college that suppresses free speech!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Connecticut College
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I’m so, so glad my sister decided against attending this school back in 2012. Not only do they place hateful, intolerant students in positions of administrative authority, but the administration and numerous faculty are morally vapid and blatantly antisemetic.

Parents, don’t let your children go to this college…their ability to actually do critical thinking and learn to debate contentious issues with free speech will be actively hampered by an administration that views itself basically as a nanny for whining, infantile college students who find microaggressions around every corner. Conn College is clearly more interested in social engineering and political correctness over the intellectual development of their students. And they are mindlessly proud of their mandatory “groupthink” diversity sessions for which they cancelled classes!

Princeton University and the University of Chicago (places with actual intelligent people running their administrations) have both come out against the kinds of policies used at Conn College. If Conn wanted to be seen as an academic and intellectual institution, they should adopt the same resolutions.

http://provost.uchicago.edu/FOECommitteeReport.pdf
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/other-topics/princeton-votes-for-academic-freedom.html

In addition, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has given Conn College a Red Light rating (the worst possible) for lack of free speech and for failure to uphold First Amendment rights on their campus.

The NYT has commented on students like those that attend Conn College: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html?_r=0

Finally, although I personally think Professor Pessin should pursue legal action against Conn College, their faculty, and individual students involved in his defamation, I at least think that anyone who cares about free speech at American academic institutions should sign this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/petitioning-president-bergeron-of-connecticut-college-and-all-those-in-favor-of-free-speech-on-campu-support-free-speech-and-professor-andrew-pessin?recruiter=147065&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive

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Take Action! Let the trustees and the administration of Connecticut College know how you feel!

TRUSTEES: Eduardo Castell (ecastell@mirramgroup.com), David Barber (david@bluehillfarm.com), Christy Burke (info@burke-company.com), Jonathan Cohen (ir@ticc.com), Kenneth Kabel (sales@oakhillscarton.com), Eric Kaplan (ejk@upenn.edu)

ADMINISTRATION: Katharine Bergeron (katherine.bergeron@conncoll.edu), Abigail Van Slyck (aavan@conncoll.edu)

BACKGROUND:

Students in the Global Islamic Studies program, in consultation with Professor Sufia Uddin (Director of the program), launched a mob attack against Andrew Pessin, a Jewish professor who openly advocates for Israel.

These students deliberately and publicly lied about Professor Pessin’s Facebook post concerning the 2014 Hamas-Israel war, falsely accusing him of racism against all Palestinians, even though his critique was clearly limited to Hamas.

Their targeted campaign endangers free speech and produced an academic lynching: nearly the entire college faculty publicly condemned Professor Pessin as a racist, damaging his national and international reputation, harming his relationship with students, and creating a hostile work environment.

Professor Pessin and his family received hate mail and death threats, and the constant and overwhelming stress from this ordeal forced him to take a medical leave of absence. He has yet to return.

Meanwhile, the Administration has not publicly reprimanded the responsible students or removed any of the defamatory materials still available to the public.

Some of the students in the academic lynch mob include:

Lamiya Khandaker - she founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine in high school, scoffed at anti-Semitism, and called for the destruction of Israel on her Facebook page this year.

Michael Fratt and Kaitlyn Garbe - they directly and blatantly lied about Professor Pessin’s post. Fratt is known as an anti-Semite on campus, and dressed up as a Jew on Halloween to mock Jews.

Ayla Zuraw-Friedland - she not only committed systematic ethical breaches in her position as Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper, but has been heard by other students to call for the destruction of Israel. (For more info, http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/concern-continues-over-philosophy-professor-targeted-for-criticism-of-hamas/)

Aparna Gopalan sponsored a defamatory online petition against Professor Pessin that directly led to his receiving hate mail and death threats.

Not only has the campus administration done nothing to hold these students accountable for their moral and legal transgressions, but they have PROMOTED and HONORED the offending parties. The administration’s conduct has directly promoted the unjust treatment of a Jewish professor for his pro-Israel views, and, as such, amounts to anti-Semitism and endangers free speech. In particular:

Bergeron and Van Slyck sponsored a campus forum in which Bergeron publicly criticized Professor Pessin’s anti-Hamas post, and opened the floor to public condemnation of him. In this forum, the one brave Jewish student who spoke up in defense of Professor Pessin was booed.

Bergeron and Van Slyck did not publicly condemn or remove Aparna Gopalan’s online petition, even though it was generating anti-Semitic hate mail and death threats to Professor Pessin and his family.

Bergeron and Van Slyck did nothing to defend Professor Pessin or discourage the faculty when they began issuing their public condemnations, and effectively endorsed those condemnations by posting them on the Connecticut College website. Even after it was exposed that the students had lied about what Professor Pessin had said, the administrators did nothing to remove or retract the libelous letter or Bergeron’s own public criticism of Professor Pessin.

Bergeron and Van Slyck have chosen not to discipline the students for their many blatant Honor Code violations. In fact, they all retained their campus privileges and positions until the end of their terms.

Bergeron and Van Slyck appointed the three Deans of “Equity and Inclusion,” who put together a whole series of anti-Israel campus events. Bergeron and Van Slyck not only praised these Deans for their efforts, but then promoted two of them afterward, even though their work actually undermined “equity and inclusion” by reinforcing the anti-Israel hate on campus.

These actions by the administration have collectively supported the anti-Semitic campaign against Professor Pessin.

As a result of the virulently anti-Jewish and hostile campus environment produced by the administration’s conduct, Jewish students are transferring out of the school, and have stated privately that they feel uncomfortable standing up for Israel or Professor Pessin, lest they be labeled as racists. They feel unwelcome on the Connecticut College campus, and indeed, are.

The Connecticut College Board of Trustees MUST condemn the systematic anti-Semitic and anti-Israel behavior of its President and her Administration and Faculty.

Coverage of this issue can be found in these Washington Post links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/08/the-hypocrisy-and-dishonesty-of-attacks-on-connecticut-college-professor-andrew-pessin/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/12/diversity-and-inclusion-at-connecticut-college/

Signed,

Defenders of Free Speech

https://www.change.org/p/the-connecticut-college-board-of-trustees-condemn-the-anti-semitic-behavior-of-president-katherine-bergeron-dean-of-faculty-abigail-van-slyck-dean-sandy-grande-dean-sunil-bhatia-dean-david-canton-and-director-of-global-islamic-studies-sufia-uddin

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https://www.thefire.org/spotlight/?x=&y=&speech_code=Red&submit=GO

It’s in good company with that Red rating: Brown, CWRU, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Princeton, Rice, Swarthmore, Tufts, etc. etc. etc…

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Binghamton University is a place where bullying and nastiness creates a toxic climate for many. It’s often not about seeing microaggressions around every corner" but calling things for what they are. At Binghamton University faculty members with seniority create toxic work environments for those junior to them, often slaughtering their careers. This happens most often before the junior colleague gets to tenure. For those who make tenure, it can continue. I’ve heard of offices being reassigned to others-in other words kicking out the instructor from one room and randomly placing him or her in another seemingly for the fun of the senior faculty member who likes seeing the junior faculty member’s live and career harmed. I’ve heard of Distinguished professors making false accusations in rooms filled with other faculty members but in the absence of the one whose reputation is being maligned. I’ve heard of faculty members sending nasty emails containing malicious and false information to large groups of people. But perhaps the worst thing about the bullying for the students is that the bullies exert their influence to find ways to ensure that their targets teach classes that are outside their specialty area and that are poor fits. The idea is to make the teaching burdensome to the instructor. The upshot is that the students are harmed. Instead of getting an enthusiastic instructor, they attend a class instructed by someone who has been brutalized by colleagues, How do you think that goes for the students. And, if the instructor is denied tenure, well let’s say that isn’t the best semester for either the students or the instructor. I’d avoid Binghamton University for teaching or for attending until the university institutes a grievance process for those who are victims. Now the administration routinely supports the bullies. How’s that working for you Binghamton University-now that social media allows victims to speak out?

Also, this is not just random accusations about the school. A recent report put out by the school conveys the same information. Buyer beware!

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Do you want to attend a school that does not tolerate bullying or are you thinking of attending Binghamton university.

The Binghamton University administration needs to implement a grievance process to help victims and to punish bullies. Simply ending the practice of supporting and rewarding bullies would be an improvement. Here is a quote from a university report:
“The stories about department climate varied, but they were not even. For every uplifting tale likening the department to a supportive and functional family or even the mythic garden of Eden, we heard distressing tales about disrespect, discrimination, harassment, and bullying. Taken together, the complaints reflected a decided gender and racial bias: women and people of color reported the highest levels of discontent and victimization. To be sure, white men, especially more junior ones, have also suffered, but our conversations revealed far fewer cases of white men being targeted compared to women and people of color.
The least of the grievances concerned recurring reports of women and people of color being ignored, slighted and talked over in various settings, formal and informal, including department meetings. This more subtle discrimination is, in some departments, accompanied by acts of micro-aggression –assaults, verbal and nonverbal, subtle and not so subtle, on the dignity, intellect and sense of self-worth.”

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You don’t need to hunt out microaggressions when bullying and misconduct pervade the school.

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@lostaccount, are you sure you posted in the right thread?

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I transferred out of this shit school to a top university with an actual intellectual environment. Student administration at Conn is an absolute fail. No wonder the school keeps dropping down the rankings

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@ugcllg: So under what circumstances did you apply this season at JHU? You stated on another thread that you applied early to JHU and were wait-listed and later denied (and will be attending Dartmouth). I’m not familiar with an early decision option for transfers applicants to JHU; nor have I heard about wait-listing for transfers; nor have you stated anywhere but on this thread that you were a transfer applicant. Did you actually attend Connecticut College?

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@ugcllg: And why on May 31st did you state that you “can’t wait to apply” to JHU?

It would appear that you never attended Connecticut College, but feel free to explain otherwise – if you can.

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I transferred more than once.

Started at Conn–> Tufts—> then Dartmouth (jhu rejected). I’m a rising junior…I meant that Tufts has a much better intellectual environment whereas Conn didn’t…didn’t feel like giving my life long story on these threads, but there u have it

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It’s a little confusing, so I see why you’d be curious

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Further, I meant to say “I can’t wait to attend”, obviously a typo. And I when I say I applied early, I meant very early in the cycle. And yes, some schools do waitlist transfers, it appears.

I’m not sure whether you’re trying to deride my comments, but nevertheless, the main point of astrophysicsdude’s thread still holds…

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I wasn’t trying to deride your comments, but I was interested in the legitimacy of their context since these forums can be impactful for those reading them.

Regarding this specific thread, some of the terms used by the OP (“mob attack,” etc) are undefined and therefore too nebulous for a reader to be confident in the accuracy of the message being conveyed. Other assertions, some of which are quite provocative, are entirely unsourced.

On a broader level, I’m surprised – and disappointed for you, really – that you couldn’t find or connect with an intellectual element at Connecticut College. From an outside perspective, the school seems to have a good amount going for it.

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@merc81 I do recognize that these forums do have an impact and that my initial post may have been harsh given that it is entirely anecdotal. It’s a great school for the right type of person, but unfortunately wasn’t a good fit for me.

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@astrophysicsdude, it would appear tha you’ve crossed into “axe to grind territory”, which is where I thought you were back in 2012 with your “my sister almost attended here” threads. Looking at those posts, I remember thinking, “this guy sure does have a lot of very specific views of a school based entirely on the experience of his sister almost attending.”

One of the things I find entertaining about Coll Conf is the chance it gives me to see how badly some people underestimate the intelligence of strangers. It reminds me how many people there are out there who really don’t know how to adequately assess what other people understand. In my line if work, it’s useful to remember that.

Let it go man.