A law student at Duke sends in this piece about Duke’s support for terror:
You are of course aware of the general situation that has arisen at Duke lately. The new Brodhead administration lent Duke’s good name to the pro-terrorist PSM conference, and spent perhaps $50,000 of the university’s money on security related to the conference… an obvious admission that folks who support suicide bombing perhaps might not be the safest invitees in the world. A maddening situation, but that has just set the stage for the latest outrage.
On Monday, the main student run newspaper, the “Chronicle,” ran a rabidly anti-Semitic piece that you’ll have to see to believe; it
is “wonderfully” entitled “The Jews.” Then read the feedback… one fellow who particularly liked what the author had to say wrote this: “Newsflash to the staunch Jewish defenders – Jew isnt a race. Jews clearly have this nation by the financial scrotum. Listen to what this kid has to say, lest we find ourselves living in the Jewnited States of America.” My point is that anti-Semites were quickly able to recognize (and admire) this as obvious anti-Semitism when they saw it…but this gets better.Our “fine” new president Richard Brodhead came out “against” the piece with a boatload of moral equivilence, apparent blame against those who opposed the PSM conference (basically, I get the idea that he thinks this is just well-deserved payback), and a bizarre defense of the author of the piece: the anti-Semitism was probably completely inadvertent! Although the article was rabidly anti-Semitic throughout, it was all somehow unintended…(!) What total dishonesty.
ADL came out against the Chronicle piece in a letter to the editor of the Chronicle… of course, the Chronicle editors didn’t publish the ADL’s letter. The Chronicle editors have even defended their running of the anti-Semitic essay, though the editor admitted that perhaps some cosmetic changes like a new headline would have been in order (!).
This is where we stand: we have a new president who has fostered anti-Semitism through his incompetence and toleration of terrorist supporters, who has sullied Duke’s good name by stamping it on anti-Semitic conferences and newspaper articles, and who refuses to take
corrective action or condemn the anti-Semitism he has brought to campus (except in mealy-mouthed non-apologies).Another tidbit: when the PSM conference started, a bogus email was sent out in the name of the two conference organizers pledging their allegiance to terrorism, HAMAS, etc. The administration, specifically John Burness, sent out an angry email to Duke students blaming the enemies of free speech (nice Orwellian touch, eh?) and those who opposed the conference for sending the bogus email. He had and has no proof that the email actually came from opponents to the conference, however. Equally (if not more) likely in my opinion is that supporters of the conference (not necessarily folks around here, but supporters nonetheless) sent the bogus email in order to DISCREDIT opponents of the PSM conference and in order to gain the sympathy of the administration and students for PSM for going up against such unscrupulous and rabid opponents. The fact that the administration ASSUMED that opponents of the conference sent the email (rather than supporters) was revealing and maddening…