A group of Jewish faculty, staff, students and alumni from colleges and universities across Iowa have penned a letter condemning actions taken against public higher education in the name of fighting antisemitism and protecting the Jewish community.
University of Iowa gender, women and sexualities professor Lisa Heineman said her institution has not faced direct attacks on academic freedom, for which she is happy, but hits to other universities are felt on the UI campus.
Heineman said she drafted the letter because of universities seeing funding cuts and other threats and international student visas falling under danger with claims of protecting Jewish communities on college campuses.
“Even threats to other universities are threats to us, right, because, if members of a campus community, including students, get the message that they might get into trouble with political speech, that’s effectively clamping down on speech,” Heineman said. “Even if there hasn’t been specific action on our campuses, the overall environment of ‘you might be penalized for political speech’ has a huge impact on our campuses.”
Faculty, students from public, private schools sign statement
Nearly 90 people signed the statement, including some associated with the UI, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, Drake University, Coe College, Grinnell College and Cornell College. Heineman said it has spread mainly through word of mouth in the week since its release.
According to the statement, those who signed it did so to “dispel misconceptions that are being wielded by people with little knowledge of academia to weaken university life and harm our students.” While they acknowledged that antisemitism, like many biases, is present in universities, the letter stated, “We can report that broad-stroke portrayals of universities as hotbeds of antisemitism do not reflect our lived experience.”
Limiting free and academic speech, including that relating to Israel and Palestine, as well as revoking international students’ visas and threatening universities with funding cuts in the name of Jewish students is “dangerous and wrong,” the letter stated.
International students across Iowa have seen their Student and Exchange Visitor Program status and visa status change multiple times over past weeks, as confirmed by state universities, community colleges and private institutions.
“It’s really clear that it’s kind of hitting a nerve with people in a lot of different spaces, and they range from retired professors down to undergraduates,” Heineman said. “So the reception has been very, very good.”
Supporters believe antisemitism threatens university life
Those who signed onto the statement hold views across the political spectrum, it stated, and have varied perspectives as Jewish people or those with Jewish ancestry, but they are joined under the belief that “a distorted view of antisemitism must not be used as a cudgel to silence the vigorous exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of university life.”
Heineman said there were two main goals behind releasing the statement and urging others to sign on: to show Iowans that these problems aren’t just doing damage at large, elite universities, and tell Iowa lawmakers serving at the federal level the same thing.
It can be easy for Iowans to believe that actions taking place at the national level won’t trickle down to the state and its residents, Heineman said, but the threats to constitutional liberties she’s seeing aren’t skipping the Midwest.
For the Congress members representing Iowa on the national stage, Heineman said she wants to see them take this information and be more proactive about protecting the state and the rights of those in it.
“I want to motivate Iowans to defend the work of their amazing universities and colleges, even if that work is sometimes controversial,” Heineman said.
Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Jewish stakeholders decry actions against Iowa colleges aimed at ‘antisemitism’
Reporting by Brooklyn Draisey / Iowa City Press-Citizen
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