by OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

March 4, 2013

Early this morning, there was a report of a person wearing a hood and robe resembling a KKK outfit between South and the Edmonia Lewis Center and in the vicinity of Afrikan Heritage House. This report is being investigated by both Safety and Security and the Oberlin Police Department. This event, in addition to the series of other hate-related incidents on campus, has precipitated our decision to suspend formal classes and all non-essential activities for today, Monday, March 4, 2013, and gather for a series of discussions of the challenging issues that have faced our community in recent weeks.

We hope today will allow the entire community—students, faculty, and staff—to make a strong statement about the values that we cherish here at Oberlin: inclusion, respect for others, and a strong and abiding faith in the worth of every individual. Indeed, the strength of Oberlin comes from our belief that diversity and openness enriches us all, and enhances the educational mission at its core.

We ask that all students, faculty and staff participate in the events planned for today:

12PM | Lord Lounge, Afrikan Heritage House
Teach-in led by Africana Studies Department

2PM | Wilder Bowl
Demonstration of solidarity

3:30PM | Finney Chapel
Community convocation: “We Stand Together” (previously scheduled for Wednesday 3/6 at 12PM)

When faced with difficult situations, Oberlin has consistently met the challenges and affirmed its commitment to the highest quality of education and the noblest aspirations of its community members. We believe that today’s events—and our ongoing work and discussions—will strengthen Oberlin and will strengthen us all.

Marvin Krislov, President
Sean Decatur, Dean, Arts & Sciences
David Stull, Dean, Conservatory of Music
Eric Estes, Dean of Students

Following is the text of a speech by Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, at Memorial Church at Harvard Yard. The text was originally printed in The New York Sun on September 22, 2002:

* * *

I speak with you today not as president of the university but as a concerned member of our community about something that I never thought I would become seriously worried about — the issue of anti-Semitism.

I am Jewish, identified but hardly devout. In my lifetime, anti-Semitism has been remote from my experience. My family all left Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. The Holocaust is for me a matter of history, not personal memory. To be sure, there were country clubs where I grew up that had few if any Jewish members, but not ones that included people I knew. My experience in college and graduate school, as a faculty member, as a government official — all involved little notice of my religion.

Indeed, I was struck during my years in the Clinton administration that the existence of an economic leadership team with people like Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Charlene Barshefsky, and many others that was very heavily Jewish passed without comment or notice — it was something that would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago, as indeed it would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago that Harvard could have a Jewish President.

Without thinking about it much, I attributed all of this to progress — to an ascendancy of enlightenment and tolerance. A view that prejudice is increasingly put aside. A view that while the politics of the Middle East was enormously complex, and contentious, the question of the right of a Jewish state to exist had been settled in the affirmative by the world community.

But today, I am less complacent. Less complacent and comfortable because there is disturbing evidence of an upturn in anti-Semitism globally, and also because of some developments closer to home. Consider some of the global events of the last year:

• There have been synagogue burnings, physical assaults on Jews, or the painting of swastikas on Jewish memorials in every country in Europe. Observers in many countries have pointed to the worst outbreak of attacks against the Jews since the Second World War.

• Candidates who denied the significance of the Holocaust reached the runoff stage of elections for the nation’s highest office in France and Denmark. State-sponsored television stations in many nations of the world spew anti-Zionist propaganda.

• The United Nationssponsored World Conference on Racism — while failing to mention human rights abuses in China, Rwanda, or anyplace in the Arab world — spoke of Israel’s policies prior to recent struggles under the Barak government as constituting ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The NGO declaration at the same conference was even more virulent.

I could go on. But I want to bring this closer to home. Of course academic communities should be and always will be places that allow any viewpoint to be expressed. And certainly there is much to be debated about the Middle East and much in Israel’s foreign and defense policy that can be and should be vigorously challenged.

But where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.

For example:

• Hundreds of European academics have called for an end to support for Israeli researchers, though not for an end to support for researchers from any other nation.
• Israeli scholars this past spring were forced off the board of an international literature journal.
• At the same rallies where protesters, many of them university students, condemn the IMF and global capitalism and raise questions about globalization, it is becoming increasingly common to also lash out at Israel. Indeed, at the anti-IMF rallies last spring, chants were heard equating Hitler and Sharon.
• Events to raise funds for organizations of questionable political provenance that in some cases were later found to support terrorism have been held by student organizations on this and other campuses with at least modest success and very little criticism.
• And some here at Harvard and some at universities across the country have called for the University to single out Israel among all nations as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the university’s endowment to be invested. I hasten to say the University has categorically rejected this suggestion.

We should always respect the academic freedom of everyone to take any position. We should also recall that academic freedom does not include freedom from criticism. The only antidote to dangerous ideas is strong alternatives vigorously advocated.

I have always throughout my life been put off by those who heard the sound of breaking glass, in every insult or slight, and conjured up images of Hitler’s Kristallnacht at any disagreement with Israel. Such views have always seemed to me alarmist if not slightly hysterical. But I have to say that while they still seem to me unwarranted, they seem rather less alarmist in the world of today than they did a year ago.

I would like nothing more than to be wrong. It is my greatest hope and prayer that the idea of a rise of anti-Semitism proves to be a self-denying prophecy — a prediction that carries the seeds of its own falsification. But this depends on all of us.

April 12, 2002
Dear Campus Colleagues:

A week ago, I wrote the campus to acknowledge the particular challenges of dealing with emotions aroused by the tragic and terrifying Middle East situation and to express the hope that we would — as we did so well after Sept. 11 — express our differences respectfully, seeing individuals, not stereotypes or, worse, enemies.

Earlier this week, major campus rallies dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict drew audiences as large as 1000 to Malcolm X Plaza. We had on and off-campus speakers, strong and often hostile words, and a march. In marked contrast to events on other campuses, these were non-violent — a tribute to many people of differing views who united to make sure this was so.

There was, however, one absolutely unacceptable action. Some of you have heard of it, and I am writing to let you know what happened and how we have responded. A flier put out by several student groups promoting one of the rallies contained an ugly, anti-Semitic section. I do not want to give its words or images further visibility by describing them in detail; suffice it to say that they referred to the ritual slaughter of babies. I have written individual letters to each of the groups and University Dean of Human Relations Ken Monteiro is meeting with them as well. We are repeating a familiar message: Hate speech is not free speech. Anti-Semitism is as ugly and unallowable as racism or scapegoating of Muslims, Arabs, or any other group. None are protected unless all are protected. We remain wholly committed to maintaining this campus as a place where all feel safe and supported.

The following paragraphs are drawn from the letters I sent to the groups:

“I write in disappointment and dismay after seeing the flier promoting the April 8 campus rally. . . The flier contains a particularly repellent example of anti-Semitism. I am referring, of course, to the ‘Made in Israel’ inset. Its obvious unreality makes it the more inflammatory. This is no political statement. It is hate speech in words and image. In particular, the phrase ‘Jewish rites’ echoes a type of ugly myth that has been used through the centuries specifically to generate hatred. I understand that when the deep offensiveness of the phrase was pointed out, some members of a sponsoring club did attempt to eradicate the words from already-posted fliers. Nonetheless, hurt and harm had already been done.

“The flier was much more than an offense to the Jewish community; it was an offense to the entire University community and to all that we stand for — most especially our ability to see the humanity in those with whom we disagree. With communications such as this flier, your group defiles itself, dampens its voice, and distracts attention from the very cause you want to espouse.

“Here, on this multicultural and international campus, you have an unparalleled opportunity — and, I would say, a particularly strong responsibility — to show that passion, and passionate differences, can coexist with decency and recognition of our common humanity. In speaking as strongly as I have in this letter, I am doing no more than you asked — working to eliminate discrimination and combat racism. And this is just as much a protection for Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians as it is for Jews and Israelis.

“I recognize that these are times of great anguish, as well as anger, and I know that one moment, one flier, does not define this group or its individual members. I have confidence that we can restore the kind of communication that so positively marked the campus [after September 11].”

Sincerely yours,

Robert A. Corrigan
President

Original: http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/response/nohate.htm