The president of Sonoma State University in California has been placed on leave following the revelation that he made an agreement with anti-Israel campus protesters from Students for Justice in Palestine.
The agreement outraged local officials and people at the school because it met almost all of the protesters’ demands and made it appear that the school president agreed with them.
The Times of Israel reported:
In first for US, California public university agrees to academic boycott of IsraelThe president of a public university in Northern California announced Wednesday that was he on leave, less than a day after endorsing an academic boycott of Israel as part of an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators to remove their tent encampment that was fiercely denounced by Jewish groups and lawmakers.In addition to an academic boycott, Sonoma State University’s Mike Lee agreed Tuesday to the establishment of an “advisory council” of Students for Justice in Palestine — whose national umbrella organization praised the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught that started the war in Gaza — to ensure compliance with the deal, which also includes a section on “disclosure and divestment.”The deal, which followed a number of other agreements that universities have announced in an effort to end the protest encampments that have been roiling campuses in the US, appeared to make the school the first American university to agree to an academic boycott of Israel.“My goal when meeting with students at the encampment was to explore opportunities to make meaningful change, identify common ground and create a safe and inclusive campus for all. I now realize that many of the statements I made in my campuswide message did just the opposite,” Lee wrote in a school-wide email.
Just astonishing.
Politico reported on the aftermath:
California university president put on leave for ‘insubordination’ after meeting Gaza protesters’ demandsCalifornia State University placed Sonoma State campus President Mike Lee on leave Wednesday after he agreed to protesters’ demands to involve them in university decision-making and pursue divestment from Israel.Lee sent a campus-wide memo Tuesday indicating that he had made several concessions to occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus. The memo was sent “without the appropriate approvals,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a statement, adding that she and the 23-campus CSU system’s board are “actively reviewing the matter.”“For now, because of this insubordination and the consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave,” García said.The punishment marks perhaps the harshest disciplinary action against a campus chancellor or president in California over the handling of protests of the war in Gaza.
Here’s a local news report:
Featured image via YouTube.
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