By SUSAN JONES
Several groups that have written or are in the process of writing letters to Chancellor Joan Gabel in response to the Chancellor’s Working Group on Antisemitism’s report and the University’s response (see the letters here) spoke to the University Times last week.
In the letters and discussions, some common themes emerged.
Shared governance and transparency
The process that formed the Working Group and its deliberations behind closed doors drew a lot of criticism.
Michael Goodhart, president of the Pitt chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said in an interview that “there’s an absolute lack of transparency around the entire process.”
“This kind of top-down approach really violates that principle of shared governance,” said Mohammed Bamyeh, of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. “We are not consulted on a lot of the important issues that happen on campus, and things (that) happen are decided in secret with no input from any of us, and then that results in this unnecessary infighting,
Ruth Mostern, vice president of the Pitt AAUP, noted that the group’s letter to Chancellor Gabel asks for “a full accounting from the administration and from the chair of the group about any of these kinds of internal deliberations, resignations, etc.”
Vicky Davide, president of the Pitt Jewish Community affinity group for faculty and staff, said when the working group was formed, PJC members were in the dark about who was on it or how to get on it. “They just felt like they didn't have their voices heard, especially when they mentioned somewhere on the report, ‘Oh, we're going to continue being in contact with different Jewish groups on campus. But as the leader of PJC for now a year, I haven't gotten any comments or anything from this group.”
A University spokesman said that “shared governance was an important part of that work from the outset,” and that the Working Group was established as a collaboration involving the chancellor, the provost, and the University Senate president.
“Before the Working Group was established, the Faculty Assembly and University Senate discussed how this work should proceed. Those discussions resulted in an approach that drew on perspectives from across the University community rather than establishing a faculty-only process. Members of the Senate served on the Working Group, and updates were provided throughout its work to both the Senate and the Board of Trustees in public session.”
The spokesman did note that, “Because the Working Group considered sensitive issues and personal experiences, its meetings were structured to encourage candid discussion.”
The Pitt AAUP has called for the Pitt administration to withdraw the report and the University’s response “as inconsistent with established norms and practices of shared governance.”
Mostern, a history professor, said the process should be “dialed back” to December 2024.
“There was a fine process underway where the Senate leadership proposed an ad hoc committee on antisemitism as part of the Senate. There was spirited conversation. There was a process underway, and at that point, the chancellor stepped in and constituted the committee that has now drafted the report,” she said. “So, take us back to the Senate deliberating, with conviction, with a range of opinions on the question of whether there needs to be an ad hoc committee on anti-Semitism through Senate channels and let that process play out.”
Academic freedom and perception of safety
Several people were troubled by the statement in the response that “the University understands that perceptions of safety are as important as safety measures themselves.”
The letter from Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine notes this is “a dangerous statement: does it mean, for example, that a white person’s perception that black people are a threat is equally valid as the real existence of threat to that person?”
Goodhart, a professor of political science and gender, sexuality, and women's studies, said he fears that in a class he teaches on human rights a unit on genocide would be stifled. “Because what if a student says to me, "Well, is what Israel's doing in Gaza genocide? If I answer honestly, based on my academic expertise, and say this fits the definition, and we work through the international legal definition, and we show how the actions correspond, like, I could be accused of creating an atmosphere of harassment and intimidation, anti-Israeli bias.”
Vicky Davide, president of the Pitt Jewish Community affinity group, said that if professors are going to talk about antisemitism or related topics, “whether it's in their subject or not in their subject, they do it with nuance and perspective and understanding that now they are the moderators of this dialog and they're there to make sure that nobody feels uncomfortable at the end of the day.”
One of the goals of the letter, “An Alternative Vision for Confronting Antisemitism,” from several Jewish scholars and allies was to support academic freedom, said Daniel Heifetz, one of the authors and a professor of religious studies.
“Everyone who participated in the writing process was Jewish, but we have a range of views,” he said. “Some of us are Zionists; some of us are more anti-Zionist, and we're all kind of troubled by this idea of using the idea of antisemitism to weaken academic freedom. Despite our disagreements about other political issues, we wanted to kind of come together and produce something that, regardless of where someone stands on Zionism, they could say, ‘Well, however I feel about that, I care about academic freedom, and I care about expertise and all these other things that universities are good at.’”
In response to questions from the University Times, a Pitt spokesman said: “The University remains firmly committed to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas, including the teaching of difficult and controversial subjects. The University’s response adopted no definition of antisemitism, established no new standards governing expression, and changed no existing University policies. Any future changes affecting University policy or standards would proceed through the University’s established shared governance processes.
“The statement regarding perceptions of safety recognizes that members of our community may legitimately feel unsafe even in the absence of an immediate physical threat. Recognizing those experiences does not alter the University’s commitment to academic freedom or free expression. Nothing in the report or the University’s response changes the standards governing classroom teaching or scholarly inquiry. Rather, it reflects the University’s responsibility to support the well-being of all members of our community while preserving an environment where ideas can be debated openly.”
Definition of antisemitism
The Working Group’s recommendations clearly said, “it is understood that antisemitism may be expressed as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist bias.”
But the University’s response noted that the Working Group was not charged with creating a formal institutional definition, “and the University is not adopting a single definition in this response or elsewhere.
“This position reflects the University’s recognition that Jewish experience, identity, and scholarship are diverse and that no single definition fully captures and relates to the range of lived experiences, concerns, and perspectives within and regarding the Jewish community. For that reason, the University believes it is important to approach these issues with nuance rather than relying exclusively on any one framework. Accordingly, rather than rely on a single formal definition, the University’s focus will remain on addressing bias, conduct, conditions, and experiences that create harm, exclusion, intimidation, or discrimination, consistent with University policy and legal obligations.”
Goodhart said the University’s response didn’t go far enough on this issue, “because the report clearly has a definition that it prefers, and so by sort of being ambivalent about it, it creates an atmosphere in which people are uncertain what the definition is. But we know that the chancellor's hand-picked working group prefers a particular definition, and so the likely result is a chilling effect on faculty speech.”
“It's always about nuance of the situation,” Davide said. “I think when you adopt a specific definition, you're not going to satisfy anybody, unfortunately.”
Community input
The Working Group’s report called for formalizing the University’s practice of consulting with external local Jewish leaders by creating an advisory council that includes Hillel, Chabad, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, and other appropriate Jewish institutions and groups. It also called for “strong collaboration between the University’s public safety team and the expert community security staff at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to review security protocols in changing threat environments.”
While not naming any specific groups, the University’s response said Pitt will “continue to work closely with University of Pittsburgh Police, campus partners, and external organizations, as appropriate, to assess security needs and support a safe campus environment.”
Several groups — including Pitt AAUP, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine — took exception to including the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. The Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine letter notes that the federation has “consistently attacked critics of the state of Israel who have expressed dissent through legal and civil channels.”
The University spokesman said in response: “The Working Group sought perspectives from a range of community organizations because several of the incidents involved individuals unaffiliated with the University and the issues it was asked to explore extended beyond the University’s campus. Community partnership was therefore an important part of the Working Group’s work.
“Consultation with community organizations does not delegate University decision-making. The University’s decisions remain its own. As with all advisory groups, participants contributed their individual perspectives, and the recommendations reflect the collective work of the Working Group.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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