On March 22, Worcester State University President Barry Maloney sent a college-wide email seemingly cementing the university’s reputation as an institution run by cowards who have allowed the college to turn hostile to Jews.
The email, in which Maloney implicitly blamed an observant Jewish professor for the school’s failure to stop anti-Israel and pro-Hamas* students from creating riot-like conditions on campus, was sent exactly 18 minutes before Shabbat began. On Shabbat, observant Jews refrain from social media and all forms of work; in the moments leading up to the weekly holy day, they are usually trying to finish any of the week’s unfinished business. It’s likely the professor/scapegoat is only seeing the message now.
As the top administrator of a university with a diverse student body, Maloney, or at least someone in his office, should have known that the timing of the email was a slap in the face to the professor and to the school’s Jewish community at large. Still, the form was perfect for the email’s content.
Maloney’s message, under the subject line “Moving Forward From March 13 Speaker Event” was different things to different people. For those who support Hamas, it was a huge victory. For campus Jews who – like the vast majority of Jews across America – support Israel and its war against Hamas, as well as all who support freedom of speech, the email was yet another insult from the university.
What happened on March 13?
The “March 13 speaker event” isn’t described in Maloney’s email, probably because of the immense embarrassment it was for the school. What happened was simple, though: after several engagements in which anti-Israel speakers lectured students about nonsense such as “settler colonialism” and questioned whether the atrocities of Oct. 7 actually happened, a Jewish professor invited IDF reservist Shahar Peled to speak. Peled, who was called up to duty as the massacre was ongoing, was to give an alternate point of view from what the university had previously offered, as well as to take questions and answers. As he was about to speak, a group of students, largely from the Muslim Student Association, disrupted the event to the point that it was entirely derailed.
Unlike members of a local socialist group, who protested peacefully outside, the MSA members and others forcibly disrupted the event, routinely shouting down Peled and making it impossible for attendees to hear more than a few words of his presentation. For example, Peled tried to describe a situation in which his battalion encountered an Arab family in northern Gaza after evacuations had already taken place. The family, Peled said, told soldiers that Hamas had shot their neighbors for trying to flee. Peled was interrupted by students heckling and accusing him of genocide.
Moments later, after a few of the most egregious disruptors were escorted out, a protester pulled a fire alarm somewhere in the building. Everyone was ushered outside, where they waited for about 20 minutes. When the all-clear was given, attendees filed back in, but by that time any chance at order had vanished. The fire alarm sounded at least twice more (though the police knew it wasn’t necessary to evacuate everyone) and there was a general air of chaos in the room.
Antisemitism
While opposing the war itself isn’t inherently antisemitic, the display staged by the students clearly was. “It felt like a hate crime,” said one Jewish student after the event. A member of the Jewish community said that she was “shaken by the hate” the students displayed.
At one point, Peled said that he felt “proud to be Jewish” after all that had happened since Oct. 7. He was met with jeers.
One or two students and a professor tried to provide cover for the antisemitism by saying that they were Jews against Israel, but these people represent an extremist fringe, tokens unrepresentative of the Jewish community. Recent polling shows that about 90 percent of all American Jews think Israel has a good reason to fight the current war, and more than two-thirds have no qualms about Israel’s handling of it.
For comparison, currently 17 percent of Black voters say they would back former President Trump for re-election. More than 1 in 5 Muslims, 21 percent, think that Hamas’s systematic rape, torture, and murder of civilians on Oct. 7 was acceptable. A Black voter is more likely to support Trump and a Muslim is more likely to support the Oct. 7 atrocities, according to the polling, than a Jew is likely to believe that Israel shouldn’t be fighting Hamas.
At one point, a student shouted at Peled that the conflict didn’t start on Oct. 7, to which Peled, trying to make himself heard, cited the 1929 Hebron Massacre, in which Arabs in pre-state Israel massacred dozens of Jews. Dropping any pretense that the protesters’ problem was with “Israelis” or “Zionists,” one of the students yelled, “The Jews started that,” letting his mask slip and garnering applause from most of the protesters inside the room.
The university’s response
How did the university respond to this? Did they condemn those who caused a long-scheduled event to end in chaos? Did the university condemn antisemitism? Did they punish any of the students shown clearly on video acting more like rioters than lecture attendees?
No.
First, Provost Lois Wims sent a message on March 14 saying that “there was a speaker on campus that has left some in the Worcester State community angry and upset, and we want to address these concerns.”
Note the language: people in the community were angry and upset – because of the speaker! The problem wasn’t the unruly antisemitic mob; it was the speaker who barely spoke.
These students whom the provost seems to believe were traumatized were only subject to having this speaker on campus because the “University upholds the First Amendment right to express differing viewpoints and acknowledges that some members of the community may find these viewpoints controversial or offensive.” Because the few words the speaker was able to get out might have been so traumatic, “students in need of support may contact the WSU Counseling Center.”
Really. The university’s leadership offered support to students because they voluntarily heard a few words from an Israeli Jew about Israel’s war on Hamas and yet had nothing to say about antisemitic disruptions that “felt like a hate crime.”
Flagrant dishonesty
There was not a single word in Wims’ message denouncing or criticizing the disruptions. Instead, the provost’s email dishonestly implied that the event went on as scheduled, despite a few interruptions. “While a majority of the audience listened respectfully, a handful of individuals were asked to leave the event after repeated requests to limit disruptions,” she wrote.
The audacious lunacy of Wims’ statement is easily visible in the videos of the event that circulated around the world, picked up even by Anadolu, Turkey’s official state-run news agency, And this ridiculous message was the only statement the university made until Maloney’s shameful March 22 email.
Worst practices
“Worcester State University stands firm in its commitment to academic freedom and to fostering an environment in which diverse perspectives can be shared in a safe and respectful manner,” Maloney wrote. This line sounds nice, but combined with the rest of the email, it is clearly an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak.
The students’ behavior was appalling; a (non-Jewish) professor at the event said, “I’ve never felt more ashamed of Worcester State students.” But who does Maloney blame in his email? Not the students. He writes, “I’ll note that the event on March 13 failed to adhere to some of our best practices with respect to WSU event sponsorship.”
You read that right! It wasn’t the students who silenced a speaker who are to be condemned. Instead, it was the professor who dared to invite someone a few find disagreeable to campus because he “failed to adhere to some of our best practices.” What are these best practices? Who knows? Maloney doesn’t say. Perhaps “best practices” involve not inviting Israelis? Not inviting Jews?
“Best practices” apparently allow for inviting a speaker to campus to accuse Israel of “settler colonialism” under the auspices of a lecture series that was supposed to be about domestic violence, as was the case with the Nov. 16, 2023, Candace Allen Lecture. That one-sided anti-Israel lecture was actually sponsored by the university’s office of multicultural affairs. (Contact me if you’d like a transcript.)
Maloney ends his email saying, “We expect that when members of the Worcester State community interact with one another they will uphold the University’s core values of academic excellence, engaged citizenship, the open exchange of ideas, diversity and inclusion, and civility and integrity. On these values, we must all stand firm and not allow any topic, artifact or individual undermine them.”
This is ironic, given that Maloney and Wims seem to “stand firm” on nothing. If they really care about “the open exchange of ideas,” why did Wims send an email downplaying out-of-control students disrupting an event while writing that those traumatized by the speaker can find counseling? Why does Maloney offer new rules for those organizing events and nothing for those who seek to shut them down? Why were none of the disruptors punished? Why do neither even condemn in general open and brazen behavior celebrating the shutting down of “the open exchange of ideas”?
Maloney, Wims, and the full administration should know that no one will be happy with their cowardly response. Those who support free speech and abhor antisemitism will view the university’s capitulation for what it is, a betrayal. The students they’re appeasing will only sneer, knowing that they’ve won.
*At least one of the students posted a video defending Hamas – not Palestinians, but Hamas itself – on the WSU 2024 Snapchat forum.