Two Rutgers faculty unions have voted for a pro-BDS resolution:
Two New Jersey faculty union have both approved an anti-Israel, BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) measure.
On Friday, the presidents of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Adjunct Faculty Union released a joint statement after approximately 60 percent of their respective members voted to request divestments from Israel.
—
The approved resolution specifically would divest from the “Genocide In Palestine,” noting that Israel “has been accused of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and dehumanization of Palestinians,” and that Israeli universities “play a key role in supporting Israel’s system of apartheid rule.”
The measure further calls upon Rutgers and the Rutgers University Foundation to end its partnership with Tel Aviv University and “disallow any future collaboration on Israeli military or intelligence technology.”
Faculty union members also voted to request that the institution ”[p]erform a comprehensive review of the university’s endowment to identify and terminate investments supporting Israeli state and military operations, Israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide of occupied Palestine territories and the Palestinian people.”
The resolution also calls for divestment from corporations that promote “human rights violations of Palestine,” such as Amazon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
—
According to its website, the Rutgers AAUP-AFT consists of over 5,000 members who have “pledged to use our power as workers and unionists to advance the cause of social justice, democracy, and equality.”
A disgrace to be sure. But what makes it even more disgraceful – while highlighting the moral bankruptcy of the unions – is that this guy would presumably have voted:
(Re) meet Michael Chikindas, Rutgers Professor in Microbiology, leading the Health Promoting Naturals Laboratory, whose antisemitic posts like the ones above (and there’s more) I exposed in 2017. Following the media attention that followed from my post (including a television interview), Rutgers removed Chikindas from teaching required courses, removed him from his leadership position as director of the Center for Digestive Health, and required him to undertake cultural sensitivity training program.
But he was not fired and is a professor there to this day.
So he very well could have taken part in the vote for this BDS resolution, and if so, we can guess where he stood on the matter.
Despite having a history working with Israeli institutions.
As U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey’s Fifth District wrote in his press release following the pro-BDS resolution:
Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of antisemitism that has run rampant on campus and threatened the safety of Jewish students. Rutgers professor Michael Chikindas, who remains an affiliated faculty member of this union, was exposed in 2017 for posting virulently antisemitic cartoons on his Facebook page. Although the university denounced his comments at the time, allowing a professor known to have proliferated antisemitic content to remain part of the faculty sends a deeply troubling message that hatred towards the Jewish community will be tolerated.
Perhaps they should be renamed Rotgers.
Want us to expose more people like Chikindas and highlight the hypocrisy of US universities like Rutgers? We need your support!
