By SUSAN JONES
The Antisemitism Working Group — authorized in December by the chancellor and the provost, with support of Senate Council — is starting to take shape, Chancellor Joan Gabel said at the March 20 Senate Council meeting.
She was asked what was happening with the group by Nancy Glynn, an associate professor in the School of Public Health.
The University-level working group — which will study the state of antisemitism on campus and in the Pittsburgh area — was created after a proposed ad hoc Senate committee on the subject met with some resistance and was delayed.
The creation of the ad hoc committee was prompted by attacks against Jewish Pitt students this semester and “other troubling instances of antisemitism in different pockets of the University that have been brought to our attention,” Senate President Robin Kear said in the fall.
Kear said in December that she believed the decision to withdraw the resolution for an ad hoc Senate committee in favor of a “different, broader direction” is “beneficial” to the University community.
But since December, the working group has not materialized. Originally, Faculty Assembly member Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor in Pitt’s School of Public and International Affairs, was set to serve as one of the working group’s co-chairs. Gabel said at Senate Council this week that Kathleen Blee, former dean of the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, will now chair the group, and Murtazashvili and Paul Wallach, vice chancellor for health sciences education, will serve as vice chairs.
Invitations have been sent out to others to be in the working group, and Gabel said they are waiting on replies. Kear said the Senate had input on the group’s membership and leadership, “but ultimately the decision making for the leadership came from the chancellor's office.”
A Pitt spokesperson said, “The University expects the group to begin its work soon. It is our hope that this effort — along with many others across campus — will help to foster an even more inclusive environment where all community members feel valued and respected.”
The issue of alleged antisemitism on college campuses came to a head earlier this month when the Trump administration cancelled $400 million in government grants and contracts with Columbia University because it said the school failed to protect Jewish students from harassment, particularly related to the pro-Palestinian protests since the war in Gaza began.
The administration demanded Columbia make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation. The government called for the university to formalize its definition of antisemitism, to ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate” and to place the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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