Pro-jihad thuggery rules on campus. Whoever offends the new Brownshirts is not allowed a hearing.
“How Political Correctness Chills Speech on Campus,” by Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, September 1, 2016:
This spring, Syracuse University will host an international conference with a theme, “The Place of Religion in Film,” that made one of its organizers think of Shimon Dotan.
The award-winning filmmaker, who sits on the faculty of New York University’s graduate school of journalism, recently finished a feature length documentary, The Settlers, that chronicles the history and present state of the religious settler movement in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 Israeli Jews live on occupied land.
The film is “one of the first close-up views of the motives and personalities in a group that rarely opens up to outsiders,” The New York Times noted. Variety raved that its festival presence is assured, and said that it is gripping enough to break out to wider audiences.
But despite an invitation to show The Settlers at “The Place of Religion in Film” conference, and interest on the part of the filmmaker, the screening will not take place. As happens so often in academia these days, campus politics got in the way.
The original invitation came from William L. Blizek, a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Nebraska, where he founded the Journal of Religion & Film. “I sent a note to one of your producers to see if we could show The Settlers at the 2017 International Conference on Religion & Film in March of 2017,” he emailed. “Can you tell me if you have a distributor? Or, who should I contact about showing the film. We would like you to come with the film of course.” He later wrote that the conference “would pay your way from Israel to the States,” and then Blizek would fly him from Syracuse to Omaha for another screening.
A few weeks later, on June 24, 2016, Professor M. Gail Hamner, a member of the Syracuse University Religion Department, emailed to renege on the invitation. Her stated reasons are a case study in how free inquiry and expression are chilled on campus:
Dear Professor Dotan,
I know you have been in contact with my Omaha colleague, Bill Blizek, about screening The Settlers and serving as plenary speaker at a religion and film conference in Syracuse in March, 2017. I am the convener of that conference and I found Bill’s description of your work, and the reviews I read of it exciting.
I now am embarrassed to share that my SU colleagues, on hearing about my attempt to secure your presentation, have warned me that the BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you and for me if you come. In particular my film colleague in English who granted me affiliated faculty in the film and screen studies program and who supported my proposal to the Humanities Council for this conference told me point blank that if I have not myself seen your film and cannot myself vouch for it to the Council, I will lose credibility with a number of film and Women/Gender studies colleagues. Sadly, I have not had the chance to see your film and can only vouch for it through my friend and through published reviews.
Clearly I am politically naive. I also feel tremendous shame in reneging on a half-offered invitation.
I do want to stress that my colleague who Chairs our SU Jewish Studies program, Zak Braiterman, was fully willing to strongly support your coming, even though he too has not yet screened your film.
Obviously, my decision here has nothing to do with you or your work, and nothing to do with Bill, who contacted you in good faith. I feel caught in an ideological matrix and by my own egoic needs to sustain certain institutional affiliations.
I sign off in hopes that I do have the chance to engage your work one day, and in prayer that you’ll forgive me. My sincere apology and best wishes,
M. Gail Hamner
Professor
Religion Department
Affiliated Faculty in Women and Gender Studies
Affiliated Faculty in Film and Screen Studies
Syracuse UniversityThe email didn’t sit right with Dotan.
“My concern,” he wrote to the colleague who originally invited him, “is that Gail Hamner rejected the idea of inviting the film without seeing it! She didn’t even ask to see it. All she was concerned about is that BDS activists may not be happy with the screening of an Israeli film at Syracuse. That is really troubling. And that happens at a University, at a temple of freedom of speech, or so we want to believe.”
As I put it in an email to Hamner, “I empathize with the tough political spot you felt yourself to be in. The forces that chill speech and action on college campuses are real and not of your making. At the same time—and I am open to being persuaded I’m wrong on this, but I wonder if you agree—it seems wrong to me to disinvite someone from an academic conference because of political pressure. And there are some who continue to deny that chilling effects like this exist.”
Initially, she emailed, “I will not comment officially. I made the decision based on my personal assessment of the factors before me. To say more than that would be wrong, both factually and morally.”
I reached out again and she sent this longer response:
As a professor in the humanities, I respect, encourage and support the academic freedom of all members of the academy, including Shimon Dotan. I want to be clear, however, that he was never invited by me, or anyone else affiliated with the University, to present his work this semester. While we had considered adding him to an upcoming series, no one from the University ever extended an invitation to him. This is a case of poor communication that has led to a terrible misunderstanding. I regret and apologize for the confusion this situation has caused.
Hamner should not have acted as she did, but I don’t see her as the villain of this story. She didn’t create the chilling effect to which she succumbed, and she appeared to nix the screening with genuine regret, not censorious eagerness….

Marty says
Why not simply call BDS and its enablers a gang of Jew haters. Israel is again being singled out for “special treatment.”. BDS would never consider protesting the savage Turkish occupation of cyprus or the Saudi mistreatment of women.
carpediadem says
More like “special handling”.
The Nazi juggernaut changed a few features but never really stopped.
BC says
My response to BDS is that I avoid as far as possible buying things from Islamic countries and seek out products from Israel
gravenimage says
Hear, hear!
mortimer says
Kristallnacht all over again. WE ARE FORGETTING. Never forget.
mortimer says
Hitler made a pact with the Islamofascists in November 1941. The black fascists of today are the American cultural Marxists who have made a pact with Hamas, the direct descendants of Mufti al Husseini who met Hitler in 1941.
Meanwhile, the American Leftarded cultural Marxists accuse the freedom community of fascism.
Westman says
It is most bizarre to see fear about the loss of money and position turn universities into a breeding ground of new “brownshirts”; dedicated to the destruction of Israel. This would be more normal in Iran.
The students, with their profound ignorance of adult life, are running the academic institution’s politics while state governments send money without any moral oversight.
Are universities becoming political hotbeds as their relevance to securing a financial security for the students decreases? Are overpriced universities, like newspapers, in decline due to the ubiquitous availability of knowledge in the modern communication age?
susan opihory says
“the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
gravenimage says
Very apt, Susan.
mortimer says
In other words, Gail Hamner believes she will lose her job if she invites ‘dirty Jews’ to her campus.
Is this what American universities have come to?
It is the Board of Governors of Syracuse University who should be CONDEMNED for not taken control of the THUGS!
Westman says
Very true. However capitalism is now triumphant in overpriced higher education and the “gouged” students and government are paying the bills. The governments don’t really pay much attention so it is the students who can make or break the finances of the university. Worse yet, students are influenced by the liberals of the faculty into causes that are parasitic upon the study time of the students. There is genuine need of reform.
Try these questions at the next student political rally: How many of you are Science, Engineering, or Math majors? How many are in Political Science, Social Science, or don’t yet have a major?
Western Canadian says
Referring to ‘modern education’ as the product of or an example of capitalism, makes no sense at all…..
Westman says
It may not make sense in Canada.
Try attending an accredited university in the US and it will become clear. Unless your parents have the money, or you have unusual job skills, you will leave with a serious debt or will be unable to finish at all due to finances. It is student debt that forms one of the current supporting legs of US higher education. There are people who have investments in Sallie Mae, the student loan agency, and are making a profit from student debt. That is capitalism and the overpriced universities are dependent upon it. This gives student organizations undue influence.
US Higher Education is a poster child for capitalism run amok. Neither Education or National Health Care are proper functions for capitalism; which has served us well in other areas.
Western Canadian says
No,the WESTERN WORLDS ‘educational’ systems are examples of state destruction of the free market in ideas…. You are actually suggesting that the thug in the White House is a follower of Adam Smith,and not an utterly brain dead disciple of Karl Marx…. Since you don’t know what Capitalism means, you really should shut up and keep your staggering level of ignorance to yourself.
gravenimage says
Mortimer wrote:
In other words, Gail Hamner believes she will lose her job if she invites ‘dirty Jews’ to her campus.
…………………………
Professor Gail Hamner is herself a ‘dirty Jew’–she is a member of the department of Jewish Studies (part of the Department of Religious Studies). But she is clearly OK with throwing Israel under the bus–a bit regretful, perhaps, but is not going to take a stand against it.
http://religion.syr.edu/About/REL_History.html
Carlos Danger says
Kapo
gravenimage says
Yes.
Jack Holan says
No conviction, principle and a bunch of weaklings. They must go with the crowd and are incapable to forge ahead alone. Today’s academia is a sad excuse to be called even high school yet they actually believe they are the elite.
Jack Holan says
Now it’s time to send THIS TO JEH JOHNSON!
gravenimage says
Grimly hilarious.
Angemon says
Women/Gender studies have no credibility whatsoever. Oh, and is there a history of films being chosen for screening, and being actually screened, even though the person who chose them did not see them in advance?
If that’s the problem, why not ask for a private screening before making her mind?
Again, why not talk it over and try to see the film before making any decisions?
Professor of what, exactly?
Great – comparing with WWII Germany, she was not a member of the Nazi party, she simply didn’t oppose it because of the consequences.
DefenderofIsliam says
Go easy on the germany people who oppose Hitler and the Nazie they number at the most at about 1000 people quite afew worked right under Hitler noise in the top level of the executive branch. Some where member of the SS and of the secret police some where military leader they live in fear of being discover by pro Nazie. If they where to openly act against Hitler they could have being arrested or shot dead. The july 1944 bomd plot to murder Hitler and coup plot against the Nazi government. Thousands whete accue of being on the plot where put on trail by kangaroos court and kill of sentence to many years in jail. Quite afew have nothing to do with the plot.
Champ says
Oh please …Hitler is no longer a threat, but mohammedans ARE!
DefenderofIsliam says
Hitler didnot die in the bunker in 1945.The bones the Russian claim that are Hitler where woman bone by dna testing than they aren’t Eva Brown bone. Than tv show ran than special on this. The people who where SS man all lying when they said that Hitler kill himself.They fround the dead body of Hitler 7 double around the bunker. Stalin Churchill and American top general who became president and the head of the FBI didnot belive that HItler die in the bunker. Hitler die in Indonesia on January 16 1970.Hitler married than moslim woman from the Sudan I know alot of you are thinking that Hitler would never married than black woman.Hitler became than muslim who ran than hospital that treat poor people totally free with the finely care. he was bury there the local people where surprised that thousands of people from South America North America Europ. And middle east visit the grave site in the first year and ever since.
Angemon says
A muslim trying to whitewash Hitler? I’m shocked, shocked!!!
gravenimage says
The semi-literate “DefenderofIsliam”–who *still* cannot spell the name of his foul creed properly–wrote:
Go easy on the germany (sic) people who oppose Hitler and the Nazie (sic) they number at the most at about 1000 people quite afew (sic) worked right under Hitler noise (sic) in the top level of the executive branch.
…………………………………
What does this even mean? That there were few actual Nazis in Nazi Germany? That there were few Germans who opposed Hitler? This is so muddled that it is impossible to tell.
Yet more:
Hitler didnot (sic) die in the bunker in 1945.The bones the Russian claim that are Hitler where (sic) woman bone by dna testing than (sic) they aren’t Eva Brown (sic) bone. Than (sic) tv show ran than special on this…
…………………………………
This was probably the ridiculous “Conspiracy: The Death of Hitler”, which aired last year. Is it any surprise that “DefenderofIsliam” is terribly gullible and believes in conspiracy theories? There are some shows on TV about alien abductions he might like, as well…
More:
Hitler die in Indonesia on January 16 1970.Hitler married than (sic) moslim (sic) woman from the Sudan I know alot (sic) of you are thinking that Hitler would never married than (sic) black woman.Hitler became than (sic) muslim (sic) who ran than (sic) hospital that treat (sic) poor people totally free with the (sic) finely (sic) care. he (sic) was bury (sic) there the local people where surprised that thousands of people from South America North America Europ (sic). And middle east (sic) visit the grave site in the first year and ever since.
…………………………………
Isn’t is great how Muslims hate and despise Infidels, but make an exception for *Hitler*, possibly the most evil man who ever lived? (Of course, the “Prophet” Muhammed is in the running, as well).
The bit about the hospital for the poor is especially ludicrous.
But I’ve taken pity on “DefenderofIsliam”, who has misspelled the name of his own faith in at least five different ways recently. Since he is so fond of cut-and-paste, he can just copy this username if he wants:
DefenderofIslam
You’re welcome, “Brian Hoff”.
Angemon says
XD
Angemon says
Huh, Brian? Did you actually read what I wrote? Because you’re *strengthening* my point.
Tracey says
Will this fill be shown at the University of Nebraska in Omaha? If so, when?
Mirren10 says
”I feel caught in an ideological matrix and by my own egoic needs to sustain certain institutional affiliations.”
Translation:
”If I don’t disinvite you, BDS will make things tough for me, and this will adversely affect my career.”
Cowardly, pusillanimous, despicable and meretricious. What a good little Nazi you are, Hamner. Faugh.
gravenimage says
That sums it up, Mirren.
Jay Boo says
Ban the MSA on campus.
The Lefties so love to grovel for approval of the MSA or the nearest Muslim within earshot.
Western Canadian says
Occupied West Bank? Rather more concerned with occupied Constantinople, occupied Egypt, occupied North Africa…… you get the idea.
John Billings says
Why are these BDS dullards in school at all? Obviously they have not learned to think. No. Instead, they have become leftist puppets, manipulated by the leftist/Islamic alliance. I am ashamed that this fine Israeli cannot show his film in an American university. I am ashamed that someone doesn’t take BDS to task in public for its obvious anti-semitism.
I cannot wait to publish my book, “Freedom from Islam”. If these young, smart-a** twerps are agitated by the mere mention of a pro-Israeli film, what will they say about my fiery sermon calling Patriots to mobilize and Muslims to apostatize? Kafir akbar!
Denny Penticoff says
The BDS movement is a Palestinian bowel movement. The group that educates children to hate and kill Jews! Anyone who supports BDS is scum.
Mirren10 says
”The BDS movement is a Palestinian bowel movement. ”
🙂 Nice one.
Lioness says
They “will make matters very unpleasant for you” sounds like a threat made by the mafia, intending on physically harming someone. But of course universities today really are muslim/leftist controlled mafias – students and professors alike.
gravenimage says
Syracuse U: Jewish filmmaker disinvited from conference, “BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you”
……………………….
Just appalling antisemitism and chilling of free speech.