Vassar College

I am posting this article that just appeared in the Observer to warn all parents and students about the hateful, antisemitic atmosphere at Vassar College: http://observer.com/2016/02/vassar-jewish-studies-sponsors-demonization-of-israel-again/

The college president has addressed this. http://alums.vassar.edu/news/features/features/2015-2016/160212-cappy-letter.html

Ironic that the author of the article is a '65 Vassar grad.

I am getting really tired of all of these “Posts: 1” posts that are conjured just to stir the pot or respond to their own posts.

I don’t have a problem with publicizing the anti-Semitic garbage that goes on at every college these days, but to equate a lecture attended by a few hundred students with a “hateful, antisemitic atmosphere” at Vassar is simply libelous of an entire institution. A sure-fire way to not be taken seriously is to write in an exaggerated and hysterical style.

I am guessing that the “drop a bomb and run” OP won’t be back. Several campuses have been dealing with the impact of some of this discourse (won’t even go into details-- why feed the OP) but President Hill’s response I linked above presents a reasoned and thoughtful response, IMO.

Looks like the OP came here to promote her own agenda. Time to list this one on the “most annoying threads” thread.

*It is against the rules to ask any CC member their true identity, no matter what you think they are doing. I have deleted all references to that. Also, being a first time poster is not always an indication of anything. My first posts on here were taking people to task over their misreporting of conditions in New Orleans and at Tulane after Katrina. Now I was supporting Tulane as opposed to criticizing it as this person is doing to Vassar, but the principle is the same. We allow similar threads regarding racism and racist incidents at schools, even though I feel confident that is also a small minority of students in all cases.

This is certainly a current issue that is playing out at numerous campuses, as large as Berkeley and as small as Vassar. It is fair game for a person on the far end of one side to present their opinion, and to expect a “warm, welcoming environment” here at CC per the Terms of Service. Disagree all you want. Present your opinions to the contrary, dispute the article with facts or even impressions. But do not make it personal towards the member, and do not try to make an issue of who they might or might not be.*

This seems like a really balanced, well thought-out article. I certainly feel informed about Vassar now. /sarcasm

There are lots and lots of hateful, racist, antisemitic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, etc, etc, etc things going on on college campuses. This seems like a whole lot of hubbub about nothing and the author doesn’t do herself any favors by coming off as hysterical rather than presenting a rational, well thought-out piece.

In my non-mod mode, I’ll just bring up one issue from the article. Now this assumes the article is at least factual, even if you think it is selective in the facts it presents. Obviously we cannot know that about any article, so I have to operate under that assumption. She said:

Frankly I find that stunning as well. In the first place, you cannot prove a negative. Second and much more important, it is never incumbent upon the person questioning the veracity of the speaker to prove their statements are untrue, especially when some (many, even) of the claims are pretty out there. It is always up to the speaker to be able to back up what they say. That an academic teaching these students would say anything that even hints at anything else is very troubling.

Let me use an example from my world. If I gave a seminar at any schools, especially an upper level one such as Vassar, titled “Atomic theory is a myth, there are no neutrons, protons or electrons” I would expect numerous objections from the professors in chemistry and physics, at the least. It would not be appropriate for my only reply to be “prove to me that what I said isn’t true”. I would need to have evidence to back up my statements which, using our current level of knowledge, are outlandish.

Bringing it back to this arena, if I gave a seminar entitled “Catholics are secretly sacrificing children” or “Blacks are genetically predisposed to crime”, how far do you think I would get before someone demanded hard evidence to support such outrageous claims? How many faculty members do you think would be satisfied with the response “prove to me what I said isn’t true”? Are you saying you would want those professors teaching your children?

So yes, even if it is a small subset of the student body and not particularly representative of the campus in general, I still find it troubling that faculty members would not raise questions that force the speaker to provide meaningful support for the claims and not just self-serving statements from other Palestinians. I find it more than troubling that they have a standard of academic rigor that is, in fact, not academic at all. And given that a typical professor has what, 10-30 in a class? Plus the air of authority that we all know many students are highly susceptible to? Yes, I find this troubling and more.

If, in fact, her account is truthful. I actually hope it isn’t.

fallenchemist, I am an alumna of Vassar College. I’ve heard from many different people that the quality of Vassar’s faculty, at least outside the sciences, has deteriorated in recent years. Don’t expect current members of the faculty to speak up against anti-Semitism. Either they are blinded by hatred of Israel, or they are too afraid of a powerful group of activist faculty members (who have the ear of the president of the college) to do so.

I certainly want to be clear here. I am not bashing Vassar in particular or the Vassar faculty in general. I don’t follow Vassar like I do Tulane, certainly. The article only mentions six faculty members being present, and only specifically identifies two that are associated with the Jewish Studies program. The latter certainly should know enough to be able to challenge the speaker, and I have already voiced my opinion that the statement made by one of them is cringe-worthy. For the other four, I refuse to make any assumptions. For all I know they are in completely unrelated departments and were simply curious about the talk, although I will say anybody that has a Ph.D. in anything should be able to ask an intelligent question that forces the speaker to amply demonstrate, if not prove, the veracity of their statements.

And this is not limited to Vassar by any means. This same thing has occurred at other schools, or in some cases a person challenging the statements has been shouted down just for asking. So there are more problems going on than just what is presented in this article, and well beyond the Vassar grounds. Therefore I reiterate that I was focusing on one very specific and narrow aspect of the article, which I nonetheless think could be a very significant issue. I hope it actually isn’t.

Update:
The College president has invited the authors of a recent Wall Street Journal article (about issues on campus) to campus to meet with students, faculty and administration during an upcoming event. It was not noted if they have accepted or not at this point in time. They are trying to address the concerns on campus. It was also pointed out by the College president that the speaker who was described in the “drop and run” post at the top of this thread has also spoken at Harvard, Cornell, Penn, Wellesley, and elsewhere.

There is also an upcoming online discussion (for alum) with the President, Chair of the Board of Trustees and classmate of mine at VC, (though IIRC we may have graduated a year apart). Unfortunately I have a conflict the evening of the online conversation and will not be able to participate in real time. Hopefully there will be a summary or ability to access it somehow, at a later time.

As an alum and a Jew, I find these issues of concern, if not alarming, and hope these issues are addressed satisfactorily. That said, I strongly agree with President Hill, who, in her message to alums, said “the megaphone effect of those who think they know what is going on but really don’t, damages those efforts.” The hyperbole in the article linked in what came across as a “scare tactic” OP does not help to keep lines of communication open. JMO.

Well said, jym626. Anyone who has been around Vassar College for any length of time knows it is an open and tolerant place where many viewpoints are welcome. Some of those viewpoints will be hurtful, but shutting them out does more harm than good.

Without going into details, Vassar College has been the site of one anti-Semitic incident after another for several years. Yup, I find it easy to believe that in between attacks on pro-Israel Jewish students and professors, the campus is an “open and tolerant place,” that is, as long as you aren’t a conservative (which I am not). The president of the college and the chairman of the BoT are planning to hold an online meeting on Thursday with disgruntled alumni, who are furious that the former won’t condemn a speaker who was cheered on campus after saying that Israelis “experiment” on “Palestinian bodies”. Alumni are allowed to submit questions in advance, and the questions that the two of them will discuss will be cherry-picked in advance. Pro-Israel Jewish students have been reaching out to alumni to tell their hair-raising stories of being bullied on campus, but most probably just keep their heads down. Vassar is under attack with the whole world watching, and you’re all just closing ranks around the school, when you should be condemning anti-Semitism and demanding that the college do something about it. I understand that admissions decisions will be mailed out shortly, but if I were a Jewish applicant or the parent of a Jewish applicant today, I would have a lot more faith in the school if President Catharine Bond Hill and Board of Trustees Chairman William Plapinger stood together and said, “We have a very serious problem with anti-Semitism at Vassar, and we vow to rid the campus of this pestilence.” A group of 39 pro-BDS professors wrote an open letter to the college newspaper a few years ago, and I know for a fact that at least a few faculty members were appalled but lacked the courage to stand up to these hooligans. Hill has never once said anything to silent faculty members to encourage them to approach her in private. She just wants these problems to go away so that she can focus on her own agenda, and now, the problems are blowing up in her face. The BoT should demand her resignation, effective immediately.

As I said above, I am disappointed that I can’t participate in the online town hall meeting (questions are submitted in advance) but some of the administration were open to suggestion s alum that might be appropriate to have on the conversation. We shall see.

Keyboard is misbehaving. That should say that some of the administration were open to suggestions of alum who might be appropriate to invite to the discussion.

Well, gotta admit the online forum was disappointing. Scripted spin.

To further complicate the discussion::http://forward.com/opinion/333959/no-vassar-isnt-a-hotbed-of-anti-semitism-trust-me-i-should-know/

I wonder if CrewDad noticed that the author of the article in the link he posted didn’t mention Israel even once! Does the author ever dare mention Israel on campus? She probably doesn’t, or students would lecture her that she must be a racist and a conservative and that she supports an “apartheid state”. I am not exaggerating. This has happened many times.

The author says we shouldn’t worry, because she only experiences some anti-Semitism on campus. Jewish alumni are aghast. Most of us didn’t experience any.

Yet, if you visit the campus and casually stroll along the beautiful paths, you might never know. At most, you might walk past a BDS table in the student center.

The president and the chairman of the board spoke to- not with- alumni tonight. The “discussion” was carefully scripted. They read their statements, which were probably approved in advance by a lawyer. General consensus among people I know is that the “conversation” was a PR event undertaken in the hopes that the president and the chairman of the BoT could fool the alumni into thinking that all’s well at Vassar.

Did you listen, Menhua? I was hopeful that it would confront the issues head on and present some real potential solutions and plans to work towards a resolution and balance between freedom of speech/sharing of diverse opinions and safety and/or hatred. I really, really wanted to like the “conversation”. It backfired, IMO. I did not like it. I am solely disappointed. And the presentation was shorter than was scheduled , and I didn’t hear the head of the BOT say a word (I was listening on an IPad at a dinner so maybe didn’t hear it? But I don’t think so). The speakers were all campus administration or faculty. It sounded like a whitewashing. I found this a very interesting response from the ADL (it came out before the “conversation” last night) in response to their invitation to come to campus http://newyork.adl.org/news/vassarcollege/

I listened to the “conversation” with a friend who was in from out of town and who happens to live not too far from campus. She was, IMO, impartial in that she is not connected to the campus. She was a disappointed as I with the rhetoric. They said there were over 900 questions presented in advance of this “conversation” and they culled them to summarize a response to one or two. Then a few faculty gave pep talks about how thins are on campus. To me, it sounded like candy canes and puppy dogs. A minimization of the concerns on both sides.

The “conversation” will be available to hear on line in a few days.

While Informer65 wants to warn parents and students about alleged anti-Semitism at Vassar following Jasbir Puar’s speech, and Menhua questions the quality of the faculty, please consider the following:

Menhua: Like you, I am an alumna of Vassar. I am also a parent of a rising senior at Vassar. As you know, for 155 years, Vassar’s mantra has been “go to the source.” Vassar teaches students to research and marshal facts to support arguments.

You say, “I’ve heard from many different people that the quality of Vassar’s faculty, at least outside the sciences, has deteriorated in recent years.”

Really? What are your sources? Where are your facts? What is your argument, beyond a bald assertion? Who have you heard from? How many? What have you done to establish the veracity of those statements or the bias of speaker? Your seemingly spurious references to “many different people” and “without going into details” leave your arguments lacking.

Based on facts (including my recently sitting in on numerous classes, my serving in alum leadership roles, my daughter’s current experience, and independent assessments of faculty conducted by leading publications), the faculty at Vassar remains outstanding. That is why Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and Best College Reviews consistently rank Vassar in the top 10-15 of elite national colleges. It is also why student’s on RateMyProfessors consistently rate their Vassar professors at the top, and why a survey of high school counselors rank Vassar at 5 for offering students outstanding education.

Among others, the head of Vassar’s Jewish Studies Department was criticized for not jumping up and interrupting Ms. Puar’s resent speech. Here are some comments about Prof. Antelyes’s scholarship and professorship from students on RateMyProfessor.com:

–Peter Antelyes is a god. Amazingly involved with his students, super supportive but still pushes you when you most need it, and wonderful at leading discussions. I would drag myself out of my death bed rather than miss his class - it’s challenging but so worth it.

–Antelyes is perfect at leading class discussion, blows your mind and then manages to make you rethink it more. You learn so much more than what I think one pays for tuition. He is a god and I want to cry in his presence.

–Antelyes is fantastic. Fair, clear, insightful, caring. Flexible and understanding, but will push you. Will guide your learning and writing in new ways and expand your thinking. You will work hard in his class not because it is hard, but because you will crave the approval of the smartest, most genuine person at VC.

So Menhua, please, share with the group the facts you rely upon to make your sweeping statement.

FallenChemist and Informer65: Let me guess — neither of you had the benefit of a rigorous, world-class education at a leading, elite liberal arts institution like Vassar, or if you did, you weren’t paying attention. Otherwise you would know the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment. Look it up, you might learn something --like the fact the former is about prejudging based on religion, ethnicity and race, while the latter is about nationalist and political issues.

After brushing up your vocabulary, read this and be informed: http://forward.com/opinion/333959/no-vassar-isnt-a-hotbed-of-anti-semitism-trust-me-i-should-know/

Better yet, take a class at Vassar’s Jewish Studies Department from the revered Peter Antelyes. Y’all will likely end up thinking he is a professor-god that blows your mind, as his students describe him on RateMyProfessor.