As the spring 2021 college semester unfolds, universities around the country have organized events to commemorate Black History Month (rightly so). But at Northeastern University, a new “intersectional” student group took the opportunity to host radical anti-Israel activist Angela Davis, known for her frequent calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Northeastern University has been on our radar a lot lately. Just a few weeks ago, we covered the controversy surrounding the school’s radical Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group’s fawning promotion of the Marxist-Leninist terror organization, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
This time, the we’ve discovered that newly minted Northeastern University student group Students Advancing Intersectional Dreams (or SAID—evidently a retooled version of the old student group Students Against Institutional Discrimination)—which has worked closely with Northeastern SJP before—co-hosted a Black History Month event with long-time Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) supporter Angela Davis on Monday, February 5.
The event was promoted on Northeastern University’s website and social media, and the Northeastern John D. O’Bryant African American Institute Facebook page, but was only open to members of the Northeastern community.
According to the event flyer (which you can see below and in our featured image), the event was supported by the Student Activity Fee (a mandatory fee collected from all undergraduate students at the beginning of each academic year) and co-hosted by the Northeastern Council for University Programs (CUP); Student Government Association (SGA); Northeastern Sexual Health Advocacy, Resources, and Education (SHARE) group (which previously worked with SJP to organize an anti-Israel “pink-washing” event); the Resident Student Association (RSA); the Northeastern Honors Program; and the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA).
Such enthusiastic support for Davis within the Northeastern community is disturbing; as a local writer pointed out in 2018 in light of a planned event with Davis at Duke University,
While [Davis] does seemingly have an endless quest for criticism of capitalism and U.S. policies (except when it comes to garnering a hefty five-figure speaker fee herself), legitimate concerns exist about troubling and hateful aspects of Davis’ agenda.
Indeed, Davis’ history of bigotry and support for repressive revolutionary regimes all over the world is decades-long and well-documented. As a leader in the American Communist party in the 1970s and 80s, “she actively supported repressive regimes in Russia, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia and opposed the activities of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents” and
was quoted as saying of Czech dissidents, “They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.” According to Alan Dershowitz, who also asked for help for Jewish refuseniks and other prisoners of conscience, she told him, “They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism.”
Davis was also an ardent supporter of murderous cult leader Jim Jones, and in a 2017 interview, she spoke glowingly of her meeting with corrupt Arab despot Yasser Arafat in communist Berlin, calling him (along with Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro) “revered figure[s] within the movement for Black liberation.” Accordingly, she is an outspoken advocate of the BDS campaign, terrorists Rasmea Odeh and Marwan Barghouti, and the Black Lives Matter movement‘s anti-Israel stances.
[Angela Davis and Yasser Arafat in Berlin in 1973. The Arabic caption mentions their “common struggle against Zionism and imperialism”. Via Twitter]
Still, none of that has stopped supposedly social justice-minded university groups and offices from paying her to ascend her soapbox. Just this year alone, Davis is apparently signed up to speak (or has already spoken) at Oregon State University, the University of Connecticut, Georgia Tech, Saginaw Valley State University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of South Florida, Salem State University, Clemson University, and Johns Hopkins University. In most of these cases, her remarks at these institutions are part of the institutions’ official 2021 Black History Month or Martin Luther King Day programming.
Meanwhile, other student and faculty groups at Northeastern have remained largely silent about Davis’ student-fee-funded lecture—with one exception: Northeastern University Hillel.
Led by executive director Gilad Skolnick, NU Hillel has frequently been the lone outspoken voice at Northeastern in principled opposition to anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, or anti-Jewish hatred. This time, Hillel issued a bold statement condemning Davis’ anti-Israel distortions and hateful history; urging “elders stuck in the past to arise from their stupor”, Hillel’s statement noted that the Abraham Accords demonstrate Israel’s openness to making peace with anyone willing.
Hopefully, Hillel’s strong statement will inspire the community at Northeastern—and elsewhere—to rethink their reverence for Davis; if these students truly care about civil rights and fighting hate, Angela Davis is not the ideal to whom they should aspire.
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Samantha Mandeles is Senior Researcher and Outreach Director at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. You can reach her on Twitter at @SRMandeles.
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