BUZZ
Pro-Palestinian groups accuse university of trying to ‘silence free speech’
An event hosted by pro-Palestinian groups at Tulane University did not take place Thursday after the guest lecturer’s hostile views of Israel sparked backlash.
The university decided to cancel the in-person lecture earlier this week, citing safety concerns, the Jerusalem News Syndicate reports. However, administrators told the student groups that they could still host the lecture online, the report states.
However, the Palestine Solidarity Coalition and the Minority Association of Pre-Med Students chose to postpone the event instead, according to an Instagram post on the coalition’s page.
The guest lecturer, Columbia University medical Professor Salman Khan, was at the heart of the controversy.
Khan’s lecture topic “Israel’s weaponization of infectious disease in Gaza” and his past criticisms of Israel drew backlash from pro-Israel groups and at least one called for the event to be cancelled, according to JNS.
“Come gain insights on what it’s like to practice medicine during an active genocide and how intentional weaponization of healthcare perpetuates within a region from the perspective of infectious diseases,” the event description stated.
In a post late Thursday on Instagram, the pro-Palestinian groups called the university’s decision to cancel the in-person event an “attempt to silence free speech.”
“Tulane has once again proven it is on the side of the genocidal machine,” the groups wrote. “Perpetrators of a genocide are allowed to speak, but a doctor saving lives is silenced.”
They also claimed the university’s true motivation for cancelling the event was money, not safety, writing, “These concerns are not for student wellbeing, they are monetary concerns about losing zionist-backed funding.”
JNS reports more:
Organizers shared a letter from the private New Orleans university, in which it wrote that “due to heightened safety concerns, the university has determined that the hybrid format of your event this evening will need to shift to a fully virtual format, without an in-person, on-campus component.”
The university wrote that it received “thousands of concerns that have escalated significantly, including threats of disruption and counter-activity that could inhibit the safe delivery of your program,” according to the letter that organizers posted. (JNS sought comment from Tulane.)
The school promised to reimburse the groups for costs of food for the event, according to the letter.
Among those criticizing the event was Susan Tuchman, director of the Center for Law and Justice at the Zionist Organization of America.
Tuchman told JNS that she asked the university to cancel the event because it would “encourage antisemitism, create fear and worry among Jewish students and violate Tulane’s values to build a welcoming and respectful community, engage collaboratively and pursue academic excellence.”
She also asked Tulane to “publicly condemn the program with Dr. Khan as hateful, antisemitic and against the values of the university” and to refuse to support such events in the future.
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