Universities, etc

Here we list cases where universities (etc) punish or censor staff or students account of the political views expressed. There are many of them, especially cases in Australia, mentioned in this article.

Frequently such people are accused of antisemitism, so it is useful to point to this letter from the Jewish Council of Australia.

And here is an academic article on the subject, Palestine Solidarity and Zionist Backlash in Australian Universities, by Jumana Bayeha and Nick Riemer

Randa Abdel-Fattah

She is a "well-known pro-Palestinian academic at Sydney’s Macquarie University", much criticised for things she has said, which I haven't found quoted in full. Some have urged that she be sacked from her academic position. The World Socialist Web Site article mentioned above is largely about this cases as are the following ones, here, here, and here.

She has written this article, which describes an open letter she and others organised, Artists & Academics Against Annexation, also available here.

She has written other articles for Al Jazeera.

David Miller

David Miller was an academic at the University of Bristol, who was dismissed by the University, despite a history described here. An Employment Tribunal found he had been unfairly dismissed, see the judgment. The case was discussed by solicitors here.

It seems he would express himself strongly, eg

Zionism is and always has been a racist, violent, imperialist ideology premised on ethnic cleansing (para 97(iii))

(this in an email to a student who had referred to him as an “utterly vile antisemite” (para 93)).

But the judgment several time makes clear that the University did not accuse him of antisemitism:

(par 233) the respondent [the University] confirmed at the last preliminary hearing that its position was that nothing the claimant said or did was antisemitic
(par 305) even on the respondent’s analysis what the claimant said was accepted as lawful, was not antisemitic
(par 491) the University was also careful to say that it was not alleging that the tweets were antisemitic

One of the matters complained about was the article We must resist Israel’s war on British universities.

However he was criticised for what he said and wrote about students and University student societies (eg paras 284 to 291, 471)

David has written a lot of articles on Al Mayadeen, and on his own substack.

He is the founder of the UK’s lobbying watchdog Spinwatch.

David was one of several academic authors of a book, Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief. But a book launch event was cancelled by Waterstones. See also Bad news for Jeremy Corbyn about the book, and Waterstones cancels launch for book on Labour and anti-Semitism or Waterstones shuts down book launch exposing the antisemitism witch hunt against the left about the launch event cancellation.