Cal State Northridge: This is on a University Website???

California State University at Northridge Math Professor David Klein is one of the legions of university professors who hates Israel. That is his right of course, but Klein takes his personal views a step further when he posts things like this on a university server (It is linked from his faculty page on the CSUN Math Department website).

http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/

http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/boycott.html

This page has upset a lot of folks who feel that it has contributed to general anti-Semitic feelings against Jewish students at CSUN. The Jewish faculty group AMCHA Initiative, headed by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin at UC Santa Cruz and Leila Beckwith, Professor-Emeritus, UCLA, has protested in a letter to the president of CSUN, Jolene Koester, who, in turn, wrote back that  Professor Klein is exercising his 1st Amendment rights.

Below is the original letter to Ms Koester:

http://amchainitiative.org/2011/12/02/professor-posts-anti-semitic-material-on-csun-website/

Below is the response from CSUN President Koester:

http://amchainitiative.org/csun-president-koesters-response-to-amchas-letter/

This gets better. Here is the response from AMCHA Initiative:

"Dear President Koester,


We thank you for your letter http://amchainitiative.org/csun-president-koesters-response-to-amchas-letter responding to our email and those of numerous members of the Jewish community regarding what we consider to be abuses of CSUN's -- and therefore the California taxpayers' -- resources, through the hosting of Professor David Klein's anti-Semitic webpages (including this one
http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/boycott.html) on the CSUN server. However, we are appalled by your response and believe that it indicates an egregious failure of leadership. You have chosen to abdicate and misapply the authority vested in you as President of CSUN:

* You have willfully ignored the CSUN policy http://www.calstate.edu/GC/csu/#ownership that prohibits the name of the University to be associated with boycotts and other politically-motivated activity;

* You have willfully ignored the CSUN policy http://www-admn.csun.edu/vp/policies/500_itr/500-10.pdf%20 which states: "Use of computers, networks and computing facilities for activities other than academic purposes or University business is not permitted";

* You have willfully ignored the CSUN policy http://www-admn.csun.edu/vp/policies/500_itr/500-05.pdf that gives the University the right to remove "any defamatory, offensive, infringing, or illegal materials" from its website.

* You have mistakenly interpreted academic freedom and freedom of speech to mean that a university-sponsored, publicly-funded website can be used to promote defamatory lies and purvey a vile anti-Semitic screed.

* You have willfully ignored the fact that Professor Klein's webpages have almost certainly contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish students on your campus, in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.


As you state in your response, you do so because the University “upholds academic freedom, eschews censorship, and defends rights to express points of view.” Yet, we are not referring here to the right of an academic to disseminate his controversial ideas in his area of expertness. Nor are we referring to the right of an academic, as a private citizen, to express his provocative ideas on his own blog. Professor Klein is a professor of mathematics. By no stretch of the imagination can his academic freedom rights in mathematics be used as a cover for anti-Semitic propaganda against the Jewish state and its supporters.

If, as you say, CSUN has no choice but to tolerate Professor Klein’s speech on its website, we question why you and the CSU administration have not exercised your own freedom of speech. You have remained silent and chosen not to acknowledge or condemn blatant anti-Jewish bigotry, although you yourself have stated that your responsibility is “to speak out and even condemn ideas and views that are racist.”

We demand that you exercise your responsibility and declare to the University community that Professor Klein’s views are deeply offensive and violate the University’s policy of tolerance and inclusiveness.

We demand that you exercise the full authority vested in you as University President by removing Professor Klein's anti-Semitic webpages from the CSUN server.

We look forward to hearing what further actions you will take.

In the meantime, we will continue our own efforts to investigate and expose the problem of anti-Jewish bigotry at CSUN, and we will use every means available to us to address it.

Please understand that the Jewish community will not remain silent while anti-Semitism goes unchecked on your campus."


Sincerely,


Tammi Rossman-Benjamin

Lecturer, University of California at Santa Cruz

Co-founder the AMCHA Initiative


Leila Beckwith

Professor Emeritus, University of California at Los Angeles

Co-founder the AMCHA Initiative



CC: CSU Chancellor Charles Reed

CSUN Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Harold Hellenbrand

CSUN Department of Mathematics Chair Werner Horn
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To which, President Koester replied in two words: "Too bad."

From: "Koester, Jolene" (e-mail deleted) 


Date: December 8, 2011 10:31:35 AM PST

To: Tammi Benjamin (e-mail deleted)
Subject: Re: responding to your letter about anti-Semitic webpages on the CSUN server

"Too bad."

Jk

Sent from my iPad
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other words:

Here is the AMCHA Initiative response to that:



"Dear President Koester,



I am shocked and distressed by your recent reply to me in response to a letter I co-authored, urging you to address an egregious case of anti-Jewish bigotry on your campus. Our letter asked you to condemn and remove Professor David Klein's anti-Semitic and highly offensive webpages from the CSUN server. In your response, you callously wrote: "Too bad." (See below).


As you know, our letter was sent to you under the aegis of the AMCHA Initiative, an organization representing more than 5,000 members and supporters of the California Jewish community, who are deeply concerned for the safety and well-being of Jewish students on California campuses. In that regard, your response is not only dismissive and disrespectful of me, but of a large segment of the Jewish community as well.

Moreover, your lack of sensitivity to our serious concerns about anti-Semitism and the welfare of Jewish students on your campus is appalling.

I and many members of the Jewish community consider it highly inappropriate for the leader of a major public university to behave in this way.

It is indeed "too bad."


Sincerely,


Tammi Rossman-Benjamin

Co-founder the AMCHA Initiative

Lecturer University of California, Santa Cruz



CC: Chancellor Charles Reed

Board of Trustees

California Governor Jerry Brown

California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom

California Speaker of the Assembly John A. Perez

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson

Congressman Brad Sherman

California State Senator Alex Padilla

California State Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes

Los Angeles Mayor - Antonio Villaraigosa

Los Angeles City Council President


BCC: For wide circulation
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Of course, universities zealously protect the freedom of expression for their professors, no matter how nutty their views. I get that. I suppose UC-Irvine doesn't much care for what I write on this site, but they have, at least up to now, respected my right to express my views-which I never express to my students in the classroom on any topic. I only wish academia would show as much consideration to students who don't share their teachers' views on the world.

Speaking of academic freedom, Klein is also part of a group of CSU professors and students who don't think students should study in Israel. Emily Schrader writes the following in The College Fix (hat tip to Ken Marcus for providing me with this article on the happenings at CSU.)

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/9844


Fortunately, in this case, the university does not seem to be buckling under to the anti-Israel crowd.

Where I choose to attack Klein is in the area of professionalism. To me, when a professor or teacher shoves his or her opinion on various issues down the throats of the students, that is not professional. When a professor puts something like the above material on a university webpage, that is unprofessional in my view. It is also unprofessional when a university allows it. It is as if they were putting their imprimatur on that view. It is also a fact that many Jewish students who speak up for Israel on college campuses are called names like "baby-killer". Think that doesn't create a hostile environment on campus for a particular group?

A couple of years ago, UCI got in a little hot water when they put up an announcement for the Muslim Student Union's annual Israel-bashing week on the university electronic marquee. Under the UC-Irvine name was, "Israel-The Politics of Genocide". They quickly had to take it down when the complaints started pouring in.

What all this has to do with the teaching of math is beyond me. Klein has the right to express his views, but I would suggest that the proper forum is outside of his teaching duties. If he wants to speak out at seminars or Israel apartheid events on campus, fine. That's what I do. My personal views  do not enter into my classroom, nor do they appear on a university webpage.

"Too bad."