Dec. 13: DEI vs. Jews at Michigan

Trump backs longshoremen; How Pelosi took care of J6 cop; A billion-dollar DEI spending spree

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The Big Story

The New York Times is reporting that a University of Michigan Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) officer has been fired over alleged antisemitic comments and that the administrator’s lawyer is vowing to sue the university. Rachel Dawson, director of the university’s office of academic multicultural initiatives, was accused of claiming that the university was “controlled by wealthy Jews,” that Jewish students were “wealthy and privileged” and thus did not need protection from the DEI bureaucracy, and that “Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel.”

Dawson allegedly made the comments during a confrontation at a diversity conference in March. Two Jewish professors, who had heard reports of a Jewish student’s “negative experience” at Michigan, approached Dawson to ask if her office was engaging with the student. One of the professors, Loyola University’s Dr. Yavneh-Klos, relayed to the Times, “I think my colleague wanted to know, ‘Does the D.E.I. office work with these students?’ Should the student go to the D.E.I. office?’ She said no. Jewish students are all rich. They don’t need us. That was the gist of what she said. It was really horrifying.”

The interaction led Klos to file a complaint with the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan branch, which complained to the university—which soon brought in an outside law firm, Covington & Burling, to investigate. In a memo, the firm concluded that the “weight of the available evidence supports ADL Michigan’s report,” though it could not rule on what the exact conversation was, because there is no recording.

Dawson disputes the professors’ version. She says she pointed out that Jews and Palestinians share an ancestral connection to the region and, through her lawyer, has denied that she said anything antisemitic. She claims that her own First Amendment rights are being violated.

The Times obtained emails on the chain of events that led to the firing. Initially, Dawson was issued a written warning and told that she would have to undergo training in antisemitism and leadership. But Mark Bernstein, a member of the Michigan Board of Regents, was not satisfied with this punishment and advocated for her immediate termination, writing that her light punishment “makes a mockery of your/our commitment to address antisemitism and broaden our DEI efforts to include antisemitism and/or Jewish students.” On Oct. 28, Dawson was informed that the earlier lesser disciplinary action was being revised; this week, she was informed that she was being fired.

The Times notes that “disciplining Ms. Dawson for her speech could be legally complicated at Michigan” because government officials are given wide latitude with speech not made in an official capacity. But while the legality may be complicated, the larger dynamic of the chasm between DEI and Jews is not. Contra Bernstein, Dawson’s alleged comments are the logical endpoint of DEI ideology. The premise of antisemitism has always been that Jews are too powerful and too privileged. Liberal Jews seeking DEI protections for antisemitism are effectively lobbying for a special carveout in an ideology that sees everything as a conflict between the privileged/oppressors (bad) and the marginalized/oppressed (good). It was no accident that, in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter posted a celebratory rendering of paragliders. At this point, the Venn diagram of DEI fans and Ta-Nehisi Coates fans is a circle.

In the meantime, the University of Michigan will be a battleground. It’s located in the state with the nation’s most robust Muslim population and, according to the Times, is, “[o]ne of higher education’s staunchest proponents of diversity, equity and inclusion plans.” On Monday, Jordan Acker, a Jewish regent, was awoken by two Mason jars filled with what appeared to be urine getting thrown through the window of his family’s home. That wasn’t the only antisemitic incident Acker has suffered, according to the Times:

A family car was painted with an inverted red triangle—which symbolizes Palestinian resistance, and which some Jews see as an antisemitic symbol—and the words “divest” and “free Palestine.” It was the third time Mr. Acker, who is Jewish, had been targeted by protesters.

While it may be difficult for some Jewish Democrats to accept, the dismantling of institutional DEI seems well on its way—and that effort is poised to make their lives safer, whether they want to admit it or not.

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The Rest

→Donald Trump announced on Thursday through his social media that he’s come out against port automation, following a meeting with International Longshoremen's Association President Harold Daggett. You might remember Daggett, a seemingly real-life mash-up of characters from The Sopranos and The Wire, as the man who led his 40,000 dock workers to strike for three days against automation in October. Well, he just scored another win.

→There are two Nancy Pelosi items today. First, the 84-year-old former speaker was hospitalized on Friday after tripping down marble stairs at the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg. (The Scroll wishes her a speedy recovery.) Second, The Blaze is reporting that the U.S. Capitol Police (USPC) officer who shot Ashli Babbitt at the Capitol on Jan. 6 received at least $36,000 as a “retention bonus” and $21,000 for “security upgrades” to his home after Pelosi told the USPC’s general counsel that he should be “taken care of,” according to unnamed source claiming firsthand knowledge of the conversation. The cop, Michael L. Byrd, also demanded (but ultimately did not receive) additional payments (sums up to $400,000 were rumored to be in consideration) for a fund reserved for the widows of slain police officers, and raised an additional $164,206 via a GoFundMe. Prior to Jan. 6, however, he had not been a cop in good standing: an internal USPC investigation in 2001 recommended that Byrd be fired for abandoning his post to play cards, and he was the subject of two other disciplinary cases, though USPC claims that records are “missing” for the latter.

→Stat of the Day: $1,002,522,304.81 billion

DEI appears to be a theme this Friday, as a new report from Parents Defending Education details how the Biden Department of Education spent more than a billion dollars on “far left” DEI initiatives. Roughly half a billion alone was used for “race-based recruiting, training, and hiring practices.” Apparently it costs $4 million to run a “culturally responsive” computer science summer camp for 600 11th and 12th graders.” If that’s the baseline, the $306,209 grant spent on training University of Missouri-St. Louis school counselors in “Trauma-Informed, Antiracist Social-Emotional Learning” is a relative bargain.

→Arab channels and Israeli media reported that the Biden administration released a senior Hamas terrorist Mofid Abdel Kader Meshaal, who happens to be the brother of senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Meshaal’s name was not included on the list of those who received pardons or clemency from Biden on Thursday, and the reports of his release have triggered speculation that it may be connected to an Israeli hostage deal—though, as of this writing, the United States has not yet confirmed his release. Meshaal was on year 16 of a 20-year sentence after being convicted on terrorist financing charges in the Holy Land Foundation prosecutions.

→Crystal Mangum, the once-alleged victim of rape in the infamous Duke lacrosse allegations from 18 years ago, has admitted to making it all up. Mangum confesses in a “Let’s Talk with Kat” podcast interview, “I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” and asks for forgiveness from the men’s Duke lacrosse players she accused of raping her.

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