Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, prominent US universities are witnessing a sharp rise in anti-Semitism and harassment of Jewish students by pro-Palestinian supporters. The case of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is no different.
On 5th December this year, two Jewish students studying at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States filed a lawsuit against the varsity for failing to stop anti-Semitism on campus and violating their civil rights.
The lawsuit stated that “(Penn) has transformed itself into incubation lab for virulent anti-Jewish hatred, harassment and discrimination.” The two Jewish students, identified as Eyal Yakoby and Jordan Davis, pointed out how some students and Professors have demonised the Jewish State of Israel.
Powerful speech by a @Penn undergraduate who has just filed suit against the university. Read the lawsuit here: https://t.co/EfBu9YqgqL https://t.co/oQ2jcyzFpL
— Iris Engelson (@irisengelson) December 6, 2023
They referred to a new group on the campus named ‘Penn Against the Occupation (PAO),’ which made anti-Semitic remarks about Israel and its right to exist as a nation. Page 28 of the lawsuit [pdf] read –
“Penn Against the Occupation (“PAO”), a new anti-Israel student group, called on Penn to divest from Israeli companies, and terminate contracts with companies that “enable” Israel. PAO asserted that Israel, which has “genocidal, racist foundations,” was engaged in “ongoing ethnic cleansing” and “an ongoing project of settler colonialism that depends on the marginalization and incremental destruction of Palestinian life.” The statement was signed by twenty-nine groups and over three hundred members of the Penn community, including professors Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Chi-ming Yang, David Kazanjian, Meta Mazaj, and Toorjo Ghose.
Interestingly, the Jewish students called out three Indian-origin Professors, namely, Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul and Toorjo Ghose for endorsing the anti-Semitism fuelled by PAO at the University of Pennsylvania.
Coincidentally, the same three Professors were involved in the cancellation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talk at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania about a decade ago.
The year was 2013. Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, was invited as a Speaker at the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF) in Philadelphia. The event was organised primarily by the student community at Wharton.
At that time, Professors Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul and Toorjo Ghose wrote a ‘strong letter’ against Modi to the Wharton administration.
Indian-origin Professors raked up ‘Gujarat riots case’ despite clean chit
The letter read, “This is the same politician who was refused a diplomatic visa by the United States State Department on March 18, 2005, on the ground that he, as Chief Minister, did nothing to prevent a series of orchestrated riots that targeted Muslims in Gujarat.”
The Indian-origin Professors were also able to secure the signatures of 250 people. This was despite the fact that the independent Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Supreme Court of India, gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi in the ‘2002 Gujarat riots case’ in April 2012.
Given that the event at Wharton was scheduled for March 2013, it meant that the Indian-origin Professors and the Penn University leadership were privy to the development 11 months ago.
Nevertheless, the nefarious agenda of the three Professors succeeded and the then University President Amy Gutmann gave in to the pressure mounted by them. The invitation was eventually withdrawn
It must be mentioned that the student body at Wharton was in favour of inviting Narendra Modi and the faculty of the business school did not want to upset a potential Prime Ministerial candidate.
A senior official told Hindustan Times that not a single faculty member of Wharton School wanted the talk to be cancelled. “Make no mistake, the move to not have Modi was a result of UPenn (the workplace of the three Indian origin Professors), not Wharton,” the official emphasised.
Now, Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul and Toorjo Ghose have been named in a lawsuit filed against the University of Pennsylvania for fuelling anti-Semitism in the campus.
University of Pennsylvania and its connection to ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ Conference
It must be mentioned that the University of Pennsylvania was one of the co-sponsors of the three-day Hinduphobic conference titled ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva (DGH),’ organised in September 2021.
Dismantling Global Hindutva (DGH) conference prompted Hinduphobia through fear-mongering without substantial evidence, delegitimizing Hindu critiques, and created a double standard by singling out Hindutva.
The event denied the existence of Hinduphobia and downplayed the concerns of the Hindu community. In October 2021, Hindu American Foundation wrote [pdf] to the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate Penn’s treatment of Hindu and Indian-origin students.
“The University of Pennsylvania was also made aware of reckless, incendiary, and unsubstantiated labels such as “supremacist,” “extremist,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” that scholar-activists associated with the event were using on both social and traditional media to disparage thousands of individual Hindus and numerous Hindu American students and community organizations expressing concerns about institutional support of a hostile, one-sided event,” the complaint said.
