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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/18626/full/18626/300-college-presidents-sign-petition-decrying-intimidation/ <br /><br /> <b>300 college presidents sign petition decrying intimidation</b> <br /> Friday, October 11, 2002 | by <p>JOE ESKENAZI </p> <br /><br /><p>More than 300 university presidents nationwide have signed a petition decrying the harassment and intimidation of Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus, but much attention is being paid to who isn't signing.<br /><br /> At least a dozen presidents, including one of the petition's original signers, have declined to endorse the American Jewish Committee-sponsored appeal, saying it addresses only one campus group.<br /><br /> "In the past few months, students who are Jewish or supporters of Israel's right to exist—Zionists—have received death threats and threats of violence," reads the petition, which ran with 308 signatures on a full page of Monday's New York Times. San Francisco State University President Robert Corrigan and U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl were among the signers.<br /><br /> "These practices and others, directed against any person, group or cause, will not be tolerated on campuses."<br /><br /> The decision to sign was an easy one for Corrigan, who added his signature weeks ago.<br /><br /> "I had no trouble signing a statement that, in the words of its critics, is a bit one-sided. I still feel the major impact of this kind of action around the country is being more heavily felt by Jewish students than by Arab-Americans…if you look at it only from the perspective of SFSU, where we have two groups who are, shall we say, in conflict, only one side is yelling things like 'Hitler should have finished the job,'" he said.<br /><br /> "It can be seen as one-sided because it basically calls attention to Jewish students on campus, but it very clearly makes the statement very strongly that this behavior will not be tolerated from anyone."<br /><br /> Berdahl is out of the country and was unavailable for comment, but the Berkeley Hillel director applauded his move.<br /><br /> "Given the climate Jewish students, pro-Israel or not, have endured for the past year-plus, it was wholly appropriate for him to sign this statement," said Adam Weisberg.<br /><br /> "It's a ridiculous argument to say you can't talk about the discomfort of Jewish students unless you talk about everybody else's."<br /><br /> The petition was penned by a handful of East Coast university presidents after a June meeting with AJCommittee members held in reaction to campus unrest at U.C. Berkeley and, especially, SFSU. One of those presidents, William Chace of Emory University, rescinded his signature, deciding the petition was "asymmetrical."<br /><br /> Ken Stern, the AJCommittee's expert on anti-Semitism and bigotry, said about a dozen university presidents made similar complaints, but not before 200 others had signed the petition, making changes to the text impossible.<br /><br /> Stern, however, said he would not have made changes to the petition even if he could have. "It's perplexing why death threats against Jews uncoupled with any other form of bigotry is insufficient.<br /><br /> "The requests to make it more symmetrical came right before the riot at Concordia University [in Montreal] and a swastika on a sukkah at Colorado University. Looking back at the time after 9/11, human rights organizations such as the AJCommitee were very quick to put out statements about the horrors of scapegoating Arabs and Muslims. No one suggested including a statement not to scapegoat everybody."<br /><br /> Joan Scott, who chairs the American Association of University Professors' committee on academic freedom and tenure, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the petition distorts the condition on the nation's campuses. "There are many more examples of attacks on critics of Israel than on students who are pro-Israel," Scott, who is Jewish, told the periodical.<br /><br /> Both Corrigan and Stern disagree with Scott's facts.<br /><br /> "For the most part, on American college and university campuses, the victims of this kind of hateful behavior are, in fact, Jewish students," Corrigan said.</p> <p> </p>

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