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Tuesday, March 2, 2021

UC Irvine and the Nigerian Hypothetical Example

Hat tip American Spectator and Squid.


Rabbi Dov Fischer has an excellent piece in the American Spectator which I am cross-posting. It concerns anti-Semitism, the BDS campaign against Israel, and the hypocrisy of certain figures like Bernie Sanders. In this piece, which comes in the wake of the recent UC Irvine Student Government's recent passing of a resolution supporting BDS and urging the campus to break connections with businesses and entities that do business with the Jewish state of Israel, Fischer asks what the world reaction would be if Nigeria were the world's only black-majority nation and were the target of BDS campaigns worldwide while all other nations were ignored.

 https://spectator.org/bds-uc-irvine-student-government/

I could write a long article on this, but I have written so much in the past about the problems at UCI and other universities.  I would like, however, to reference the metaphor about black students hypothetically avoiding UCI because of fears that a controversy over Nigeria would result in racism against them. Even though it is hypothetical in this case, it is a reality when it comes to Jewish students, Israel, and UC Irvine. We will never know how many prospective Jewish students UCI has lost because of real events that have taken place at UCI (many of which I have been a witness to), but they have lost plenty. I have heard so many anecdotal stories.

As a former part-time teacher at UCI, who still has friends there, and who cares about the reputation of the university, I applaud Dov Fischer for holding their feet to the fire. Someday, hopefully, it will result in a meaningful change.

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