I’m fairly sensitive to antisemitism because I’ve been on the receiving end so many times in my life, but the only thing I can think that might be antisemitic, and it’s really hard to tell from the context, is:
My guess is that it is not associating Jews and money, but if it is, that is the only place there and it seems like you could only argue that one or maybe two of the deans were involved.
Considering it’s Columbia, I think it’s likely just talking about the rich people who go to and are associated with the university, which could be of any ethnicity.
It seems possible that they’re all watching someone who is equating pro-Palestinian protestors with Hamas and condemning them, and all the people texting are fairly disgusted with the university for publicly lying about and betraying their own students in that fashion, and speculating on the motives – i.e. that in one way or another that person or the university or both will keep the flow of donations going by saying this.
I don’t know for sure but that’s the feeling I get from it. It doesn’t sound anti-Semitic. That’s just my take on it without much context.
After reading the texts, i agree with your take.
Seems whoever they were calling a clown didnt like it and is using flimsy pretext to punish these people
I mean, I definitely wouldn’t like it if I were the administrator of the university and those texts came to light.
My dad told me about this type of situation once when I was much younger. I got in an altercation about something and explained it to my dad, and he was like, well what did you think was gonna happen. I said but no, I was right, means I’m justified. He said yeah that makes it 10 times worse. If you call somebody out on something like that, and you’re wrong, it might be a big deal or it might not. If you are right, it’s pretty certain that it’s gonna be a big deal and you should expect some results from what you said.
And lo… I was enlightened.
I mean this is different, that was deliberately in public on my end. When you’re texting your friends you should say whatever the fuck you want to say and if your employer is doing something illegal in service of a genocide and goes through your texts, for some reason, and finds out you don’t like it, I’m not gonna be the one to tell you that’s your fault. But I do understand why the employer is extremely mad about it and saying some trumped-up bullshit reason why it’s officially not okay.
That was my takeaway too. I can kinda see that one.
The vomit emoji one is particularly egregious though.
It’s hard for me to remember the state of the war on October 24th when that op-ed was written. I also don’t know the context of what the actual anti-Israel protests immediately after the attack. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they considered it to be a gross exaggeration. Especially with some of the assertions the op-ed made.
Remember that in a situation like this, people demand that heads roll. And when Columbia University went looking for the worst antisemites on campus, this is the best they could find.
