A DEI person accused of antisemitism? Say it isn’t so!
An administrator with the diversity, equity and inclusion office at the University of Michigan was fired Tuesday after she was accused of making antisemitic remarks – and now she plans to pursue legal action against the school, her attorney said.
Rachel Dawson, who served as director of the university’s Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, was accused of saying, “The university is controlled by wealthy Jews” during a conversation with two professors at an academic conference on diversity and equity in late March, according to documents obtained by CNN.
Dawson was also accused of saying, “We don’t work with Jews. They are wealthy and privileged and take care of themselves” and that “Jewish people have ‘no genetic DNA’ that would connect them to the land of Israel,” according to the documents.
Dawson’s lawyer Amanda Ghannam denied that she made those statements or any antisemitic comments. Before she was fired this week, Dawson had received a written warning on October 15, and was placed on leave a little over two weeks later when the warning was revoked, Ghannam told CNN Thursday. Ghannam said she will take “appropriate legal action” for what she alleges is a violation of Dawson’s constitutional rights as a public employee.
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Loyola University New Orleans professor Naomi Yavneh Klos and an assistant professor of ethnic studies – who was not named and whose affiliation was not revealed – said they approached Dawson because they heard about the “negative experience” of a Jewish University of Michigan student, according to the Covington & Burling memo.
Klos asked Dawson whether her office works with Jewish students, and she responded that her office did not work with Jewish students because they’re privileged and did not need assistance from the DEI team, according to Klos’ account. The other professor stated that the conversation left her “practically shaking,” the memo said.
Two days later, Klos texted a friend who works at the ADL, saying: “She told me their policy is to wait for groups to reach out to them and she doesn’t work with the Jews because they are all wealthy and privileged and take care of themselves,” according to the memo. Her friend advised her to file an incident report with the ADL.
“DEI offices have an obligation to serve students facing challenges based on their identities, including Jewish students, many of whom have faced harassment, exclusion, discriminatory comments, and even violence after October 7th,” Klos told CNN on Friday. She said Dawson told her “something along the lines that we all know” Jews have no ancestral relationship to Israel.
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Dawson, on the other hand, provided a different account of the conversation she had with the two professors. Ghannam, her attorney, denied that Dawson said any of the remarks she was accused of, including that Jews had no ancestral claim to Israel. Ghannam said the topic of conversation came up when Dawson was asked by the women if she knew the history of the region, and Dawson responded she believed multiple groups of people have origins in the region, Ghannam said.
Photo: LinkedIn
You might have been able to tell from my sarcasm that this isn’t the first instance of a DEI officer with problematic views towards Jews. So this isn’t really news for me. What I find more interesting about this is while we don’t know for sure what transpired, we do know that Dawson has chosen Amanda Ghannam to be her lawyer.
Ghannam belongs to the Palestinian American Bar Association.
I find it curious Dawson chose a palestinian American lawyer specifically. True, it might be a coincidence, and I am sure Ghannam is a good lawyer, having won a few accolades according to her firm’s website. On the other hand, it might point towards a certain bias on Dawson’s part.
Plus it doesn’t help that this palestinian Arab lawyer considers Jews to be white.
The university’s handling of the allegations “sets a dangerous precedent,” Ghannam said, adding that it’s unprecedented for the school to hire an external investigator for a lower level administrator instead of addressing it with her direct supervisor and conducting a traditional human resources process. She said the law firm’s investigation “leaves out important context,” including that Dawson was responding to questions and framing from the women who approached her.
”My client is a Black woman who was approached by two White women who became visibly angry with her when she didn’t agree with them,” Ghannam said. “The university decided to take the side of the two women over a beloved leader in the community who has a long history of serving all students.”
We know at least one of the professors who approached Dawson was Jewish. Jews are not White, and claiming we are plays into one of the accusations against Dawson, namely that she denied our ancestral connection to the land of Israel.
And if you want to argue that she meant White just in comparison to Dawson who is Black, let me remind you all how palestinian Americans have portrayed themselves as women of color in a successful bid to form an alliance with BLM and other Black activists.
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