I’m not an alum and I’m open to hearing all sides of this but as an outsider, my reaction to the links that have been provided, both by menhua and others, provide the facts and sources you’re asking for VC Alum. They are scary.
3girls3cats –
You say the links in this thread provide the facts and sources for this context. Then you say the facts are scary.
I hate to seem like a well-educated Vassar grad, but you are wrong. Let me break it down for you:
The first link you reference is literally an opinion piece, not an article, not a statement of facts. You can tell because it is labelled OPINION. You’re welcome.
The next link is Ziva Dahl’s opinion–really more of a hysterical rant.You can tell it’s an opinion because it’s full of her opinions, judgments, and hysteria. Are you getting the gist of this opinion vs facts thing? (Btw, Ms. Dahl labels Ms. Paur’s speech as both slanderous and libelous. Ms. Dahl is an attorney, but doesn’t know that the spoken word cannot be libelous. A required element of libel is publication, in written or printed form. Delivering a speech can’t be libel.)
The third link is to President HIll’s letter inviting a rational and informed discussion of all sides of this issue. Again, not a fact piece --just an invitation.
The fourth link is to a statement from the Anti-Defamation League, announcing its conclusion that President Hill’s letter was “a good first step” toward examination of this issue, and encouraging continued action. Again, an opinion of the ADL, not facts. (Btw, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky has characterized the ADL as solely an advocate for Israeli policy. He believes that the ADL casts opposition to Israeli interests as anti-Semitism.)
As we say at Vassar, “go to the source.” Before going to the source, perhaps pause a bit and think about the difference between facts and opinion. #VassarTraining
Finally, if you find these opinions “scary” then maybe you, too, would benefit from a Vassar education, where you will learn to embrace new ideas, evaluate opinions, and critically examine all sides of an issue – all with an open mind and heart. #VassarTraining.
Hey, prospective applicants-- if you’re lucky and qualified enough to be admitted to Vassar, you’ll learn that! And so much more! #23%Accepted
VC Alum. Read all the links, not just the first ones you see. There are multiple references within these links, some of which refer to Nazi propaganda published by the SJP on the Vassar campus and others of which take you to news accounts of incidents on the campus over years. Refer to the comments by the alums on this thread, which collectively tell you how they perceive the situation.
Insulting me doesn’t convince me (or likely anyone else) of the rightness of your position.
jym626: I, too, had trouble hearing the whole “discussion,” which, as you know, wasn’t a discussion at all. The most common two words I kept hearing were “thank you” as speaker after speaker insisted on taking the time to thank everyone else for all the good things they’ve done at Vassar. It was a farce. I will read the transcript when it is available to fill in the parts I missed. I sensed that everyone was reading from prepared scripts. Most alumni I know, even those with an intense dislike for the current Israeli government, are furious about anti-Semitism on campus. My non-Jewish Vassar friends are also signing petitions to insist that the administration take action. The young alumni say the problem lies with a core group of powerful faculty members who are anti-semitic. The older ones say that at best, Cappy (the president), has no leadership skills. All of my Jewish classmates who currently have children at Vassar say their children keep their heads down and hide their Jewishness on campus.
VCAlum, where do I begin to answer your insults? I cannot help but answer you in kind.
Many people my age have kids in college, and I know many people from college who currently have children at Vassar or have children who recently graduated. I’ve heard that the sciences at Vassar are pretty good, but the math department is deplorable. Economics is a good department. But the English department, which used to be nationally known, is now a very weak department and is a shadow of its former self. One of my friends even told me that one of the old timers in the English department, a professor who had been around back in my day and retired only recently, used to complain bitterly to students in his classes of being very disappointed in the department’s decline. Given that English is one of the largest departments in the school, that says a lot.
Of course, I have no respect for the members of the Jewish studies program, who come from a variety of departments. They sponsored Puar. People I know have investigated Puar’s scholarship. In her published work, she apparently cites bloggers and Facebook discussions, some of which can no longer even be accessed, to back up her claims about evil Jews. If blogs and Facebook had been around back in my day, I am quite confident that my professors would have given Puar an “F” for relying primarily on such sources to back up her anti-Semitic claims in an essay. Google “Right to Maim,” and look for Puar’s article in the GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Volume 21, Numbers 2-3, June 2015, pp. 218-221 (Article). Go through her references in her essay in this collection of essays, and you’ll have to agree that most of her sources are very weak:
Yet, American Studies, Africana Studies, International Studies and Women’s Studies programs and the English, Political Science and Religion departments all thought that Puar was enough of a scholar to warrant inviting her! What am I supposed to think about the quality of the professors in these departments?
I’m also very disappointed that you regard “ratemyprofessor” has a definitive source of information. Really? Ratemyprofessor.com does not represent a scientific sample of student reviews. Heck, I can log onto the website and post a review of a professor I’ve never even met!
As for Ziva Dahl, I looked back at the article she wrote, in part because I was confused. I was right. She’s not a lawyer. She has a master’s degree in political science. I took note of that when I first read the piece, because I wanted to consider how further schooling after Vassar might have influenced her thinking. Didn’t your professors at Vassar teach you to read carefully and not play loose with the facts? I agree with you that her piece is an opinion piece, but are you arguing that her quotes aren’t accurate?
When you criticize others for citing opinions instead of “facts,” why do you bring Noam Chomsky into the discussion? He’s just offering his opinion, too.
In addition, VCAlum, you seem to be quite uninformed about the concept that denying the right of the Jews to have a state of their own is perceived by many as the new form of anti-Semitism. You obviously don’t want to see both sides, though you think your Vassar education taught you to do that.
Many of my Vassar classmates can point to a professor who made them feel very humble, especially during freshman year. Usually, these professors gave them Cs or Ds on their first college papers- papers that would have been considered “A” papers in high school. They’ve never forgotten.
Obviously, VCalum, you never had a Vassar professor who humbled you, or you would not be so full of yourself today. And, to add to 3girls3cats’ comment above, insulting people is not only not the right way to convince someone of the rightness of your opinion, it also goes against everything I learned at Vassar.
People at Vassar are very socially conscious. This includes interest the plight of the Palestinians in the west bank and their disenfranchisement. . But there is a group that uses the race card and equates disagreement with the policies of the state of Israel with hatred to Jews. It is not. It is not anti semitic to not support the government of Israel, that’s like saying if you are American and did not support the policies of George Bush that you hate white people. As a point, if you are gun ho with support about settlements on the west bank you might receive push back no matter what your ethnic group is. There might be a non tolerance in Vassar to points of view that might be considered conservative and support for settlements in the west bank is a issue that many conservatives favor. But my son actually got flack for wearing a FDR button so I do not actually think there is a huge intolerance for conservatism really.
^^
Why did your son receive flack for wearing an FDR button? I can’t imagine the enlightened students at Vassar thought he was a Republican 
robowtrainbow, it isn’t anti-Semitic to be critical of the Israeli government. It also isn’t anti-American to be critical of the US government.
That said, it would be anti-American if someone from another country started an organization, BDS-America, during Bush’s presidency that called for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the US with the ultimate goal of destroying the country until it ceases to exist and is controlled by another entity (from the Atlantic to the Pacific). Oh, and by the way, just between you and me, that means killing off all Americans or sending them all back to their countries of origin while we’re at it. (Don’t you know that the Native Americans aren’t really native to America and have no connection to the land? Send them back where they came from, too.)
You cannot argue that such a loony organization would have ceased to exist once Bush left the presidency, because as I said, its real goal, if it were similar to the SJP, is to cleanse the US of Americans from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. SJP members at Vassar sing, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They don’t sing a little ditty about making peace with Israel and establishing a completely independent state on lands Israel captured in 1967.
For many Jews, particularly secular Jews who openly identify as Jews, the connection between Israel and Judaism is how they define their Judaism. You cannot separate the two. This is not true for very left wing Jewish students at Vassar who have joined the SJP, but it is true for a sizable number of Jews at Vassar, at least according to an off-campus rabbi who has provided a sanctuary for these students. Many of these students, fearful of the bigotry and intimidation they would face if they were openly pro-Israel on campus, try to be invisible at Vassar.
While I, too, am against the current Israeli government, I’m sure the BDS movement will continue even if Netanyahu’s government falls tomorrow. Its ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel, not the removal of Netanyahu from office. It is anti-Semitic to work for the destruction of the only Jewish country in the world.
Meanwhile, the president of Vassar ordered the student government not to hold a vote on a BDS resolution last night. They defied her and went ahead with the vote anyway. I guess all the atrocities all over the world, including Arab on Arab violence, doesn’t rise to the level of importance of taking sides in a complicated conflict in which wrongs have been committed on both sides.
Perhaps you and the students at Vassar who gave your son flack for wearing an FDR button would be wise to study history as well as current events.
This is not the school I knew and loved. So disappointing .
No indication that the VSA was told not to hold a vote. Will there be any consequence to their defying that instruction, or was it just a request?