A York student hears a professor say something anti-semitic, rushes out of the room in a rage, and informs on him all over the Jewish community. The professor is branded an anti-semite.
The professor, who is Jewish, was clearly using the anti-semitic statement in his lecture about prejudice as an example of a reprehensible opinion. The student failed to understand this.
Interviewed later, the student apologized profusely and …
No:
[Senior Sarah] Grunfeld said Tuesday she may have misunderstood the context and intent of Johnston’s remarks, but that fact is insignificant.
“The words, ‘Jews should be sterilized’ still came out of his mouth, so regardless of the context I still think that’s pretty serious.”
Grunfeld also expressed skepticism that Johnston was in fact Jewish.
Asked directly by a reporter whether she believes Johnston is lying, she was unclear.
“Whether he is or is not, no one will know,” she said. “. . . Maybe he thought because he is Jewish he can talk smack about other Jews.”
York is about to graduate this woman.
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Mr UD’s reaction: “The same words came out of her mouth. Context be damned. Let the word go out.”
September 14th, 2011 at 1:18PM
[…] through the lecture, only managed to catch the quote you used in order to criticize it, and will rush off to complain: A York student hears a professor say something anti-semitic, rushes out of the room in a rage, and […]
September 14th, 2011 at 2:21PM
”Fortunately for Ms. Grunfeld,” Johnson said, “not only do I not believe that ‘all Jews should be sterilized,’ I don’t even believe that ‘all moronic Jews should be sterilized.’ But I can encourage them to teach their children better than they’ve been taught.” Or at least, that’s what he should have said.
September 14th, 2011 at 6:50PM
Game to Mr. UD!
September 15th, 2011 at 11:55AM
One can only imagine what Ms. Grunfeld would have thought of a twentieth century German history class, in which the professor quoted anti-Semitic statements made by, for instance, Hitler.
September 15th, 2011 at 12:56PM
This is somewhat the same as the incident at Harvard years ago involving Stephan Thernstrom. York seems to have handled it a bit better.