Brooklyn College President Karen Gould botches handling of an anti-Israel conference
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, February 9, 2013
So much for academic freedom at Brooklyn College.
There was no place at an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic campus program for four students who attempted to attend with the goal of expressing contrary views.
At the order of a representative of Students for Justice in Palestine, and while a school administrator stood by, campus security forced the four members of Hillel, a Jewish student society, out of the event.
The expulsions are a severe blot on the record of college President Karen Gould, as well as on the standing of Paisley Currah, chair of the political science department, which co-sponsored lectures devoted to the so-called BDS movement.
Gould and Currah had defended the department’s co-sponsorship as an exercise in academic freedom. Gould, for one, urged people with differing views to attend and speak their minds.
“I encourage those who do attend with opposing views to participate in the discussion, ask tough questions and challenge any ideas with which they disagree,” she wrote.
That’s not what happened for student Melanie Goldberg and three companions. She said she brought opposing fact sheets to distribute at the end of the program.
When a member of the sponsoring group saw her taking notes on the papers, she said, he demanded that she surrender them or be expelled.
Goldberg refused. Security was called. Goldberg said she complained to college Vice President Milga Morales, only to be told, “It’s their event and they are calling the shots.”
Continue reading.
So much for academic freedom at Brooklyn College. There was no place at an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic campus program for four students who attempted to attend with the goal of expressing contrary views.
At the order of a representative of Students for Justice in Palestine, and while a school administrator stood by, campus security forced the four members of Hillel, a Jewish student society, out of the event.
The expulsions are a severe blot on the record of college President Karen Gould, as well as on the standing of Paisley Currah, chair of the political science department, which co-sponsored lectures devoted to the so-called BDS movement.
Gould and Currah had defended the department’s co-sponsorship as an exercise in academic freedom. Gould, for one, urged people with differing views to attend and speak their minds.
“I encourage those who do attend with opposing views to participate in the discussion, ask tough questions and challenge any ideas with which they disagree,” she wrote.
That’s not what happened for student Melanie Goldberg and three companions. She said she brought opposing fact sheets to distribute at the end of the program.
When a member of the sponsoring group saw her taking notes on the papers, she said, he demanded that she surrender them or be expelled.
Goldberg refused. Security was called. Goldberg said she complained to college Vice President Milga Morales, only to be told, “It’s their event and they are calling the shots.”
Continue reading.
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