Brandeis Center Client Testifies at Congressional Hearing on Anti-Semitism Affecting College Faculty

Brandeis Center client Dafna Golden, a professor of Geography at Mt. San Antonio College in California, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives last week at a hearing examining the impact on faculty of unchecked anti-Semitism on college campuses.

“I am here today to share the distressing experiences I have endured at Mt. SAC as a Jewish professor in the wake of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel,” testified Professor Golden. “I have experienced an anti-Semitic hostile environment at Mt. SAC and anti-Semitic discrimination specifically directed at me, which Mt. SAC – my employer — has failed to properly remedy or protect me from. Mt. SAC is my workplace, and in my opinion, this is unacceptable and illegal in any workplace.”

The hearing was conducted by the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections

 of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and titled “Combating Workplace Antisemitism In Postsecondary Education: Protecting Employees From Discrimination.”

Rory Lancman, the Brandeis Center’s Director of Corporate Initiatives and Senior Counsel, has been assisting Professor Golden since shortly after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, which unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism across the globe and on American college campuses in particular.

The discrimination began in earnest when Professor Golden objected to the college’s support for a professor’s planned screening of an offensive and anti-Semitic film, “The Occupation of the American Mind,” just weeks after the October 7th attack.  Narrated by the notorious anti-Semite Roger Waters, the film’s central thesis is that a cabal of “leaders of major Jewish organizations” have conspired to use their power to control and thus “occupy” the minds of innocent Americans so that they would support Israel. The movie is basically a screen version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and serves no academic function.

In retaliation for voicing her objections to the film and the college’s withdrawal of its endorsement, the professor instigated a campaign of harassment against Professor Golden through email and in-person to his students by falsely labeling her a “violent Zionist” and a “former soldier in the IDF,” and inciting his students “to stand up” to her.

In response, a notorious anti-Semitic organization on campus, Shut It Down 4 Palestine, vandalized Professor Golden’s bulletin board outside her office; the college library was pressured into removing a non-ideological, academic exhibit she installed on Israel’s changing borders over the years; her profile on RateMyProfessors.com was bombarded with fake negative reviews; anti-Israel students made public comments at a college Board of Trustees meeting demanding that she be fired and declaring a boycott of her classes; and her spring semester on-campus class was canceled due to low enrollment, limiting her to online teaching, making it impossible for her to maintain the collaborative relationships with her colleagues that is so essential for the multi-disciplinary program she manages.

Mt. San Antonio college did nothing to protect Professor Golden or address the discrimination, harassment, and ostracization she experienced.

“Like so many of my Jewish colleagues at colleges across the country, the general anti-Semitic hostile environment turned to focus on me directly – because I am a Jew; because I won’t hide or reject my connection as a Jew to the Jewish state and the Jewish people,” testified Professor Golden. “And my employer – Mt. SAC – did not help me; did not protect me; and did not fulfil its responsibilities under the law.  Despite filing a complaint with HR, no disciplinary actions were taken against the professor.  My employer – Mt. San Antonio College – refuses to act; refuses to take any disciplinary or remedial action.”

“Colleges are also workplaces, and the laws prohibiting anti-Semitic discrimination in the workplace apply no less to college faculty and staff than they do to workers in other settings,” said Mr. Lancman. “College administrators who fail to protect their faculty from workplace anti-Semitism of the kind experienced by Professor Golden are violating the law, plain and simple.”

Watch Professor Golden’s testimony below — or read its transcript.

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