By: Brandon Poulter, Daily Caller News Foundation
Stanford suspended a lecturer and launched an investigation after the lecturer allegedly singled out Jewish students in the classroom and called them “colonizers,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Hamas terrorists attacked Israel Saturday, killing over 1,200 Israelis, including many unarmed women and children. A Stanford lecturer allegedly criticized Jewish students following the attacks, calling them “colonizers” and downplaying the number of Jews who died during the Holocaust, according to the Chronicle.
“We have received a report of a class in which a non-faculty instructor is reported to have addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities. Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern. Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students,” Stanford University said in a statement.
The lecturer was not named by the Chronicle because this matter is still under investigation by Stanford University. Higher education watchdog Campus Reform said the lecturer “appears to be” Ameer Hasan Loggins.
Nourya Cohen and Andrei Mandelshtam, students at Stanford University and co-presidents of Stanford’s Israeli Student Association, interviewed students enrolled in the classes in which the incident occurred, according to the Chronicle.
The lecturer “asked Jewish students to raise their hands,” and separated them from their belongings, and said he was simulating what Jews do to Palestinians, Cohen told the Chronicle.
“He asked how many Jews died in the Holocaust,” Cohen told the Chronicle. The students responded 6 million, to which the lecturer responded, “Yes. Only 6 million,” Cohen told the Chronicle.
Cohen and Mandelshtam said that students told them that the lecturer asked everyone to identify their ancestral heritage and labeled them “colonizer” or “colonized,” depending on their family’s lineage, according to the Chronicle. One student reported being from Israel, and the lecturer said, “Oh, definitely a colonizer,” Cohen and Mandelshtam told the Chronicle.
“I feel absolutely dehumanized that someone in charge of students and developing minds could possibly try and justify the massacre of my people,” Cohen told the Chronicle. “It’s like I’m reliving the justification of Nazis 80 years ago on today’s college campus.”
Multiple student groups at elite universities, including Harvard University, Columbia University, Yale University and George Washington University have put out statements supporting the Palestinians following the brutal terrorist attack on Israel.
Loggins taught former football player-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick, according to Campus Reform, introducing him to writing that inspired Kaepernick’s national anthem protests and anti-police rhetoric.
Stanford University did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
