USC Prof. John Strauss Banned From Campus After Misleadingly-Edited Video Of His Comments Condemning Hamas
Professor John Strauss says his comments were misrepresented in an online video that omitted his reference to Hamas, giving the impression he had called for death to all Palestinians. While Strauss says he’s encouraged by the support he’s received from faculty and students—including a petition to reinstate him—the calls to remove him come amidst a surge in campus antisemitism.
A tenured economics professor at the University of Southern California has been barred from teaching on campus for making anti-Hamas comments at a pro-Palestine event earlier this month.
Professor John Strauss says his comments were misrepresented in an online video that omitted his reference to Hamas, giving the impression he had called for death to all Palestinians.
The video went viral:
here is @USC professor John Strauss saying “every one of them should be killed, and I hope they all are” while passing by students who organised a memorial for 10,000+ Palestinian martyrs killed in the past month pic.twitter.com/Iuox2laMKL
— tara (@taraxrh) November 10, 2023
The online mob calling for Strauss’s head spread to Instagram, where users now claimed the professor “threatened” and “harassed” the students and that he “hoped” they—or the residents of Gaza—would “get killed”:
But Strauss says his comments at the rally for Gaza were ripped out of context.
The November 9 event was planned as part of the nationwide “Shut it Down for Palestine” Day, led by the Palestinian Youth Movement.
As usual, what began as a campus-wide walkout in support of Palestine ended up as a massive protest against Israel, Annenberg Media reported. Strauss, who is Jewish, told NBC News that as he walked to class that day, the furious crowd shouted “death to Israel”:
The conflict became personal after the protesters accused Strauss of desecrating the memory of Palestinians killed in Gaza. Rows of paper listing their names had been taped to the ground in preparation for the event, and they claimed he intentionally walked on them. Strauss says he certainly didn’t mean to.
On his way back from class, one of the protesters called him out by name: “Shame on you, Professor Strauss.” Strauss says he responded in kind: “Shame on you.” He continued:
“You people are ignorant, really ignorant.” “Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are.”
Those remarks including the Hamas reference are captured in a reportedly unedited version of the exchange posted at Annenberg Media:
The calls to cancel Strauss came the same day. Within hours of the rally, the campus community reportedly filed multiple complaints against him with the Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX for discrimination on the basis of national origin and hate speech.
And the following Monday, USC Provost Andrew Guzman sent a formal letter to Strauss banning him from campus for the rest of the semester. According to the student newspaper, Guzman wrote that “all interactions with students would have to take place ‘remotely and not in person.’” The Provost says the move is not meant to punish Strauss.
But pressure is mounting for the administration to do exactly that: fire him.
A petition calling for his termination has nearly 7,000 signatures:
The petition repeats the out-of-context comments that ignited the controversy:
His racist, xenophobic behavior, including stepping on names during a memorial service at USC for over 10k innocent civilians that lost their lives in Palestine, is unacceptable. His remarks – “everyone should be killed, and I hope they all are” – are not only offensive but also promote and incite violence.
Those comments could damage the students’ delicate psyches, the petition warns:
The impact of such behavior on students can be detrimental. Studies have shown that exposure to racial discrimination can lead to negative mental health outcomes (American Psychological Association).
The student who organized the rally agrees. She told Annenberg Media that Strauss’s comments “threatened us as students … making us feel unsafe in our academic environment.” She reportedly withheld her own name out of fear for her safety.
But it is the 72-year-old professor who is getting the actual threats, including death threats. Strauss told NBC News:
I started receiving many vitriolic emails: ‘Death to Professor Strauss. Professor Strauss should be fired.’
And while Strauss says he’s encouraged by the support he’s received from faculty and students—including a petition to reinstate him—the calls to remove him come amidst a surge in campus antisemitism. As we wrote here, campus “pro-Palestine” rallies inevitably devolve into attacks on Jews, including actual violence. It’s the Jewish campus community that has reason to feel “unsafe.”
As his supporters wrote in their petitition, even if the administration banned Strauss from campus out of concern for his safety, the logic is perverse: “We should not revert to the days of the Holocaust. Jewish people should not have to hide for our safety. Violent people who make threats and spread false accusations are the ones who should be expelled, not the victims of their abuse.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This is the same basic woke/leftist playbook they routinely employ to great success. Step one is the framing of everyone into two categories of oppressor v oppressed. Step two is ensuring the ‘oppressed’ are now unshackled by norms, customs, traditions of civil behavior. Step three is to ensure that those constraints remain rigidly enforced against only the ‘oppressors’.
The ideological infiltration of our institutions, academia, media, corporations and govt by woke/leftists has been a rousing success from the progressive viewpoint. The Overton window has shifted so far and so fast that many are still struggling to catch up. This is reflected in the reactions of the few remaining liberals within the d/prog party circles to the crazed actions of woke/leftists re Hamas butchery.
It’s not quite cognitive dissonance but it is more of a lightbulb moment for those liberals, especially Jews. As the attention and hostility of their erstwhile woke/leftist allies is turned upon liberals the intellectually honest recognize exactly how much this playbook resembles the prior actions they once approved of when deployed against; males, ‘white people’, heterosexuals, residents of flyover States, gun owners and so on.
Woke progressive lefties now consider jews to be in the “oppressor” category if they don’t support the elimination of israel.
Dems aren’t dog whistling to the crazies. Dems are the crazies.
IMO, minus a few decades of the post WWII period, Jews have historically been in the ‘oppressor’ category. They were the OG of.oppressors in Western culture.. That’s evident by all the basic anti Semitic tropes; money lenders, sacrifice children, disloyal to whatever Nation they reside in, all that bogus crap.
Again IMO the first few decades post WWII radically altered the perspective of most people in the USA about the way the world actually is. Defeated Nazi and Imperial Japan but the US was untouched. This led to the Pax Americana which many misinterpreted as ‘the way things are and will continue to be of the US fulfillment of a sort of geo political manifest destiny as THE enduring hegemony.
Instead of understanding it was largely an accident of history and geography many viewed this development as a near religiously ordained fulfillment of destiny. It’s easy to be the biggest, most productive economy when only your factories are left intact after a massively destructive world war which came on the heels of the great depression and world war I.
This period of very abnormal abundance historically speaking led to great hubris and that led to magical thinking and luxury beliefs becoming commonplace. The economy would always be better, children would always do better financially than their parents. Our voting population allowed the govt at all levels to expand. We.took on huge.debt and inexorably altered the relationship of govt to the public.
All this abundance resulted in a new orthodoxy of what would previously have been lunatic fringe ideas. ‘Micro aggressions’ becoming a thing installing DEI, CRT departments to enforce punitive sanctions on people based on their immutable characteristics. Only extremely wealthy Nations can afford such foolishness. And now we come nearly full circle to a pre WWII level of public anti Semitic expression.
“The economy would always be better, children would always do better financially than their parents.”
And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling Marxist Democrats!
Though not to the same extent as the immediate post WWII period. By the late ’60’s early ’70’s Japan and Germany were back to competing economically with the USA and doing pretty well. They built on that success to reestablish themselves.
It wasn’t so much the neo Marxists as it was the neo cons in 90’s and 00’s that tipped the balance IMO. The cold war ended but even with a huge demonstration of Western power in the 1st Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Empire these folks demanded huge military budgets and troops overseas. In the post Soviet era other Nations massively cut defense spending, free rode the umbrella of the US military as the ‘world police’.
Frankly the seeds of decline in the US were sowed in the late 60’s/early 70’s by deliberate decisions that created massive changes to our social structure. Consider that this period had the formation of the ‘great society programs’, institution of no fault divorce, the ‘pill’ (hormonal birth control) and abortion. Add the rise of 4th wave feminism and the role of husband/father was disposable and replaced with Uncle Sugar’s welfare programs, alimony and child support.
Then add in the end of the gold and silver standard which put the US on an entirely fiat currency. That allowed massive govt borrowing and spending b/c there really wasn’t a straightforward mechanism to restrain it anymore. The dollar and very importantly real wages and real returns plummeted. This further eroded the traditional male role as breadwinner.
Those changes weren’t made by crazy commies but by, in today’s terms, moderate to conservative politicians of both political parties. Reagan as CA gov signed no fault divorce into law, Nixon took us off the silver standard and ended the foreign exchange of gold for $. Even LBJ, who pushed the great society, wasn’t exactly a commie. Nor were the majority of Congress who approves these programs.
Rows of paper listing their names had been taped to the ground in preparation for the event, and they claimed he intentionally walked on them.
Quelle horreur.
How about taping them on a wall? Last time I checked, it’s not that easy to walk on walls, especially accidentally.
Unless, of course, taping them on the ground is just a pretext for baiting someone so you can then engage in histrionics and faux outrage.
Plus claiming space — it’s a demonstration of power to take the space n make people walk around. Same as the “peaceful” “protesters” gluing themselves to whatever. The point is to force an imposition on other people: extorting you to do what they demand or be harmed, and showing that they can.
Why did Andy Ngo have to be brained by a non-violent frozen water bottle (while being otherwise pummeled by boots n fists?) Not just to show the extortion is real. But, he was in a space they’d claimed, showing their power again. Most of Portland has been claimed this way, for some time. Or the “Autonomous Zone” in Seattle. They take the space, to show that they can.
I would just keep mum and teach my courses exactly as I wish. Unless my curriculum were threatened, I would speak out on no issue. To do otherwise is to become embroiled in a ruinous fight that will do neither yourself nor those whom you support any good. The battle must be fought on another field.
So…. in other words, hide.
He was right the first time
Anyone who uses the phrase “palestinian martyrs” without sarcasm cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Just remember with lefty logic once you become the “oppressed”, you are allowed to commit any atrocity in the name of “justice”
Not exactly. It depends upon the number of boxes checked or how much overlap one has in the Venn Diagram of the oppression ‘Olympics’. As an example I am disabled and from the Appalachian region which puts me in the ‘oppressed’ category. Yet b/c I am a straight, white, male those negate my membership in the ‘oppressed’. B/C I become economically successful that offsets my upbringing. B/C my disability was via combat service and not something I was born with my disability isn’t viewed as noble, this is particularly true b/c I refuse to allow my disability to define me or use it as a crutch to gain sympathy or as a weapon to wield against society. All this pushes me into the ‘oppressor’ category.
Hell, I feel oppressed just having read this… 🤣
In simplest form woke leftist philosophy boils down to those who believe in personal responsibility are always in the ‘oppressor’ category while those who prefer to make excuses for their failures are in the ‘oppressed’ category. Layered on top are the tortured linguistic gymnastics used by woke/leftists to manufacture their preferred heads they win, tails you lose scenarios.
“As an example I am disabled and from the Appalachian region which puts me in the ‘oppressed’ category. Yet b/c I am a straight, white, male those negate my membership in the ‘oppressed’.”
You let them stick you into the “Vern Diagram.”
I can’t control what other people choose to say about me, how they choose to view me or to categorize me. I can control my response to those things and I choose to reject their labels.
Except the definition of “oppressed” is changing. Groups who previously believed they were in the “oppressed” category are suddenly being labeled oppressors overnight.
Gays who don’t support the trans groomer agenda are moved into the category of oppressor. Asian americans who don’t want schools dumbed down with affirmative action admissions are moved into the category of oppressor. Jews who don’t support the elimination of israel are labeled oppressors.
More.
Sue them for a lovely severance package.
The oppressed saying they’re offended while yelling in your face.
So to recap — chanting “Death to Israel” is good campus policy, but replying “Death to Gazans,” is grounds for termination.
(Not that he did, but… EVEN if he had.)
They have to run him out of there, not for what the misleading edit says, but for what he really said.