A former college Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) director is shedding light on the despicable anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests that erupted on U.S. campuses after Hamas’s recent heinous terrorist attacks on Israel. According to Tabia Lee, “toxic DEI ideology” on college campuses “deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.”
After Hamas atrocities on Israeli civilians shocked the world and after the Palestinian authorities proved to be either active participants in or supporters of the terrorist attacks, the choice for standing behind Israel seemed clearer than ever. After all, even if you don’t know the history of many decades of Arabs refusing their own state and waging jihad on Israel to destroy it, the murdered babies, slaughtered families, kidnapped civilians, and devastated villages seemed a pretty obvious illustration of who was in the wrong.
Yet U.S. universities suffered a rash of pro-Palestinian rallies and statements. Why? Former DEI director Dr. Tabia Lee explained in an Oct. 18 op-ed for the New York Post.
The “blatant” anti-Semitism that broke out after the latest Hamas-Israel conflict began did not shock her, Lee noted, because of her personal experience. Lee said that she saw anti-Semitism “on a weekly basis” during her two years at Silicon Valley’s De Anza College, where she was a faculty DEI director. When she was hired in 2021, as a black woman, she seemed the “perfect person for the job — on paper,” Lee explained.
Yet I made the mistake of trying to create an authentically inclusive learning environment for everyone, including Jewish students.
Turns out, a toxic form of DEI (which is more accurately called “critical social justice”) demanded I do the opposite.
Before I got to campus, Jewish students had endured a litany of hateful and hostile acts.
These included a Hanukkah party without imagery for the Jewish holiday but with pro-Palestinian protestors. De Anza was also the “first college of its kind” to have the student body pass resolutions alleging that Israel committed “attacks against humanity” and urging a “divesting” from Israel. Jewish students told Lee that the college environment was anti-Semitic.
”I tried to right this wrong,” Lee wrote. “First, I hosted Jewish speakers on campus, with the goal of promoting diversity and inclusion by sharing different perspectives.” What she got for her trouble was the school refusing to promote her events and the epithet of “dirty Zionist.”
So Lee tried to get an administrative condemnation of anti-Semitism — and was not only refused but was also told not to raise any problems of “Jewish inclusion or antisemitism.” Why? These woke wackos said Jews were “white oppressors” and that faculty and staff had a duty to “decenter whiteness.” Lee continued:
I was astounded, but I shouldn’t have been.
At its worst, DEI is built on the unshakable belief that the world is divided into two groups of people: the oppressors and the oppressed.
Jews are categorically placed in the oppressor category, while Israel is branded a “genocidal, settler, colonialist state.”
In this worldview, criticizing Israel and the Jewish people is not only acceptable but praiseworthy…If you don’t go after them — or worse, if you defend them — you’re actively abetting racist oppression.
The same people who hate America hate Israel.
Never has she experienced a “more hostile environment toward the members of any racial, ethnic or religious group” than she did against Jews at De Anza, Lee stated. The college ended up firing her, and she suspects her defense of Jews contributed to that. Unfortunately, her experience with anti-Semitism in higher education was not unusual.
“Countless faculty and students on campuses nationwide have told me the DEI ideology encourages antisemitism,” Lee noted. “One study found 96% of Israel-focused tweets by campus DEI staff criticized the Jewish state.” That was even before the current Hamas-Israel war.
Related: 1350% Increase in London Anti-Semitic Crimes Amid Israel-Hamas War
Institutions of higher education that are so dedicated to DEI that they either stay silent on the Hamas terrorism, engage in “moral equivocation about terrorism against Israel,” or actually praise terrorists are “hurting Jewish students,” Lee insisted. This is especially true of student groups that openly support Hamas! She cited one national group in particular, “White Coats for Black Lives,” which has chapters for medical students in over 100 universities.
On Tuesday, just days after Hamas murdered Jewish families in their beds, the DEI-driven group proudly declared it has “long supported Palestine’s struggle for liberation.”
How could a Jewish patient ever trust a medical trainee or professional who subscribes to such blatant antisemitic hatred?
Lee called such statements “tantamount to threatening” the lives of Jews. This insane endorsement of terrorism also raises questions over whether “such hate-filled people should even be allowed to practice medicine,” Lee added. Sadly, DEI is directly responsible for the pro-terrorist attitudes, she wrote.
Anti-Semites went from “rhetorical attacks” to open endorsements of real-world “violent attacks,” an “inevitable” result from an ideology that “demeans an entire group of people” and falsely accuses them of excessive injustices. DEI has divided people and ginned up hatred, and of course, it’s gotten out of control.
“Sure enough, the fire of antisemitism is now burning bright on college campuses,” she wrote. “It needs to be extinguished immediately so it doesn’t spread and do more damage. I know just the place to start.”
Lee called on lawmakers and administrators to purge DEI from universities. If such action isn’t taken, she concluded, “there will be no true diversity and inclusion on campus, but there will be even more shocking hatred toward Jews.”
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