Tulane U. Cancels Event About Israel ‘Weaponizing Infectious Diseases’ After Backlash
“Tulane has once again proven it is on the side of the genocidal machine”
Anti-Israel activists try to pull this kind of garbage in higher education because that is where they have gotten away with it for years.
The College Fix reports:
Tulane cancels event on Israel ‘weaponizing infectious diseases’ after backlash
An event hosted by pro-Palestinian groups at Tulane University did not take place Thursday after the guest lecturer’s hostile views of Israel sparked backlash.
The university decided to cancel the in-person lecture earlier this week, citing safety concerns, the Jerusalem News Syndicate reports. However, administrators told the student groups that they could still host the lecture online, the report states.
However, the Palestine Solidarity Coalition and the Minority Association of Pre-Med Students chose to postpone the event instead, according to an Instagram post on the coalition’s page.
The guest lecturer, Columbia University medical Professor Salman Khan, was at the heart of the controversy.
Khan’s lecture topic “Israel’s weaponization of infectious disease in Gaza” and his past criticisms of Israel drew backlash from pro-Israel groups and at least one called for the event to be cancelled, according to JNS.
“Come gain insights on what it’s like to practice medicine during an active genocide and how intentional weaponization of healthcare perpetuates within a region from the perspective of infectious diseases,” the event description stated.
In a post late Thursday on Instagram, the pro-Palestinian groups called the university’s decision to cancel the in-person event an “attempt to silence free speech.”
“Tulane has once again proven it is on the side of the genocidal machine,” the groups wrote. “Perpetrators of a genocide are allowed to speak, but a doctor saving lives is silenced.”
They also claimed the university’s true motivation for cancelling the event was money, not safety, writing, “These concerns are not for student wellbeing, they are monetary concerns about losing zionist-backed funding.”
JNS reports more:
Organizers shared a letter from the private New Orleans university, in which it wrote that “due to heightened safety concerns, the university has determined that the hybrid format of your event this evening will need to shift to a fully virtual format, without an in-person, on-campus component.”
The university wrote that it received “thousands of concerns that have escalated significantly, including threats of disruption and counter-activity that could inhibit the safe delivery of your program,” according to the letter that organizers posted. (JNS sought comment from Tulane.)
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Comments
Sauce for the goose…
Tulane University has a very high undergrad population of Jews about 30%. It’s one of the few schools were Jews can loudly argue to not be treated like shit and have an actual impact. Boo hoo to the palestinian bigotry machine that they have not as of yet conquered Tulane. I’m sure they will keep trying.
This is a literal blood libel and should not be allowed under university sponsorship even without any safety concern, just as they wouldn’t allow a Nazi “racial scientist” to talk about how Africans are physically inferior and fit only for slavery. Even a government institution doesn’t have to sponsor such a thing, though it has to allow it to happen without its sponsorship.
Tulane is a private institution, thankfully. A rancid private university like Columbia allows this nonsense.
My medical alma mater. I’d be all for allowing the talk to proceed—if and only in the form of a debate. I’d be more than happy to be on the “that’s total bullshit” side.
In the immortal words attributed to Ben Franklin (or Winston), a lie can get around the world twice before the truth can get its pants on. I’m fine with people telling lies. They do it all the time. What I’m ~not~ fine with is letting it happen in a vacuum, i.e. unopposed in real time.
I currently teach there, and this truly is just a tempest in a teapot The instigators are again a small cadre of marginalized trolls who have managed to secure a juicy chunk of the negative attention they crave, and are desperately hoping to ride that ripple as long and as far as they can. Students who are unsure about how they feel about facing the expectations of competency that universities promote are drawn to these dramas, but there really aren’t that many of them hanging around such foolishness this far into the semester. Nevertheless, the powers that be here are still skittish about cracking down even on the blatant antisemitism. That seems to be the norm nowadays on a lot of campuses. Never in the course of academic history have so many been so intimidated by so few!
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