IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Universities Debate
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Jonathan Gullis
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IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Universities
Jonathan Gullis Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing this important debate.
I am disgusted that we stand here today, in 2020, to condemn the ways in which universities have not only refused to engage with or listen to students, but, as in the instance of the University of Warwick, have been gaslighting Jewish students and the wider Jewish community. The institutional hijacking of freedom of speech that is currently being used as a façade for universities and professors to scurry behind is appalling.
In May 2019, a previous Minister for Universities sent a letter to all universities in the United Kingdom to encourage them to adopt the IHRA definition. Hot on the heels of the letter was the president of the Jewish/Israeli society at the University of Warwick, who sent his own letter, as a representative of Jewish students at Warwick, further imploring the vice-chancellor Stuart Croft to heed the advice of the Government and adopt the definition. The Jewish/Israeli society president was met with nothing but silence for over six months. When a copy of this letter was hand-delivered to Stuart Croft’s office, the response that came one week later was that the definition offered “no added value.”
Two inconclusive meetings were held, and a promised third in March was delayed initially, but never rescheduled. A further letter was sent in mid-July by Jewish community leaders, which has also gone unanswered.
In November 2019, a lecturer became the epicentre of the university’s apathy when academic Dr Goldie Osuri declared that antisemitism in the Labour party was
“an Israeli lobby kind of idea”,
evoking the age-old trope of malign Jewish power. When a formal complaint was made, Osuri emailed all students on the module to say that they should look at the work of Jewish Voice for Labour which, in her words, believed Labour’s antisemitism problem was “orchestrated”. The investigation was spearheaded by the head of sociology, Professor Virinder Kalra, who had previously expressed public opposition to the IHRA definition. He concluded that Osuri’s comments remained
“within the principles and values of tolerance and free speech”.
An appeal was rejected, and students were left feeling unsafe, attacked and gaslit. The process of complaint has now been exhausted. It is unimaginable and unacceptable, and such people should be removed from our university sector.