How Oberlin Has Repeatedly Failed to Confront its Anti-Semitism Problem – Tablet Magazine

Last February, Oberlin College became the flashpoint of a national controversy when it was discovered that the liberal arts school was employing an openly anti-Semitic professor. On Facebook, social justice writing instructor Joy Karega had dubbed ISIS a “CIA and Mossad operation,” suggested Israel downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, claimed the Mossad perpetrated the Charlie Hebdo attacks, posted a video arguing that Jews did 9/11, and shared an anti-Semitic meme of Jewish banker Jacob Rothschild that declared, “We own your news, the media, your oil, and your government.” Karega’s story was covered in the New York Times and numerous other media outlets, and her conduct was condemned by Oberlin’s board of trustees.

At the time, some publications—including Tablet—suggested that Karega’s hiring, despite her prejudiced views, represented a broader institutional failure at Oberlin. Two of Oberlin’s associate deans had served on the small search committee that hired Karega to guide undergraduates in ethical activism, and yet they completely failed to recognize her bigotry. Tablet has learned, however, that the institution’s seeming inability to face up to Karega’s conduct went even higher than previously reported, and that a broader climate of anti-Semitism has gone unaddressed on campus.

From: How Oberlin Has Repeatedly Failed to Confront its Anti-Semitism Problem – Tablet Magazine