A recent University report on antisemitism is getting pushback from faculty groups.<\/p>\n
Created in 2025 after multiple antisemitic attacks<\/a> on Jewish students, Pitt\u2019s Working Group on Antisemitism released a report<\/a> in July containing recommendations for how the University should combat antisemitism on and off campus. Some faculty groups say they believe the report\u2019s process did not follow the principles of shared governance and that some of its recommendations would impinge on academic freedom.<\/p>\n According to the eight-page report, the group was established to make \u201cactionable recommendations\u201d to prevent and respond to antisemitism. In its background section, the report cites reports of antisemitic activity after Oct. 7, 2023, including the physical assaults of three Jewish students on or near campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its recommendations address categories like institutional capacity to respond to antisemitism, institutional policies, incident response, and training and education.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want campus democracy, ultimately, and this report basically is not going in that direction,\u201d sociology professor Mohammed Bamyeh said.<\/p>\n Concerns over shared governance\u00a0\n<\/p>\n One major concern among faculty is that the working group process did not follow the principles of university shared governance, and that partly because of this, too few community members were consulted.<\/p>\n Pitt\u2019s Staff Council website<\/a> explains that shared governance enables discussions amongst members of upper administration, faculty and students and key campus groups before decisions are made.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many faculty members pointed towards University Senate deliberations in 2024<\/a>, when it was ultimately decided<\/a> that work to address antisemitism on campus should shift from a University Senate ad hoc committee to a university-level working group.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Ruth Mostern, history professor and vice president of Pitt\u2019s chapter<\/a> of the American Association of University Professors<\/a>, said she believes the process of writing the report would have followed shared governance if the proposal to create a Senate ad hoc committee went through the Senate Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of permitting this deliberative process to take its course in accordance with Pitt Senate rules and practices \u2014 that is, through Pitt\u2019s shared governance bodies and their bylaws \u2014 some deliberation occurred that has never been made public, which resulted in the administration forming its own [working group] with no further faculty input,\u201d Mostern wrote in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Goodhart, political science professor and president of the AAUP, is skeptical about how much Chancellor Joan Gabel and the working group are open to altering the report in response to feedback.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd even if they are, it\u2019s that draft that shapes the conversation,\u201d Goodhart said. \u201cIf a professor comes to class with a \u2018draft\u2019 syllabus and then says, \u2018Let\u2019s discuss this, I want your input, it\u2019s a shared class,\u2019 that draft still shapes the conversation, and you might be reluctant to say, \u2018This stinks\u2019 knowing that it\u2019s the draft that your professor, who will be grading you, prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n Pitt\u2019s AAUP chapter penned a letter of opposition calling for the report\u2019s withdrawal. Pitt spokesperson Jared Stonesifer told The Pitt News that the University does not intend to withdraw the report, adding that the university is taking next steps on a number of the working group\u2019s recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRecommendations involving matters that are appropriately addressed through shared governance will proceed accordingly,\u201d Stonesifer said.<\/p>\n Kristin Kanthak, president of the University Senate and political science professor, wrote in an email that she thinks some of the pushback is based on a \u201cfundamental misunderstanding of what shared governance is and how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she believes shared governance does not preclude the chancellor from asking for or receiving advice, and that shared governance does not mean the Senate is a gatekeeper of access to the chancellor. She believes that shared governance comes into play when considering policy implementation, and she does not see any dramatic policy changes in the chancellor\u2019s response<\/a> to the report.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Senate ought to play a role in determining how the university as a whole responds to the report and to the chancellor\u2019s take on the report,\u201d Kanthak said. \u201cShared governance means the report is the start of the conversation, not the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Three authors of the report \u2014 Kathleen Blee, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Paul Wallach \u2014 did not respond to a request for an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know anybody on that committee\u201d\n<\/p>\n Mohammed Bamyeh, sociology professor and a member of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, called the report\u2019s process \u201ccompletely undemocratic and nontransparent,\u201d believing it subverts the shared governance process where faculty are supposed to be consulted about important policies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want to do essentially is go back to 2024, when this discussion in the Faculty Senate began, pick up where we left off, and actually have the process take its course within the committee,\u201d Bamyeh said.<\/p>\n Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt released a statement<\/a> condemning the report and the Chancellor\u2019s response to it, referencing the 2024 University Senate deliberations and saying they believe it conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.<\/p>\n Vicky Davide, president of the faculty affinity group Pitt Jewish Community, said many of her colleagues were concerned that the group did not consult enough Jewish perspectives in the community. She noted that there were no faculty members from the Jewish Studies program<\/a> in the working group.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Jewish community president, I would have known somebody on that committee, but I didn\u2019t know anybody on that committee,\u201d Davide said.<\/p>\n Davide said she and her colleagues had trouble receiving information about getting involved in the working group, after inquiring about it through Staff Council and other avenues.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of my colleagues were really disappointed when the report came out. They didn\u2019t feel like it was nuanced enough or didn\u2019t have enough conversations,\u201d Davide said. \u201cIt\u2019s not all bad. It\u2019s a good start to it. But it needs to be improved.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Marcus, executive director and CEO of Hillel JUC of Pittsburgh, explained in an email that Hillel welcomes the report\u2019s recommendations and that it hopes there will be consideration given to adopting a policy definition of antisemitism such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe very much appreciate the time, dedication, and effort that the Working Group on Antisemitism has dedicated to this important task,\u201d Marcus said.<\/p>\n Chabad Rabbi Shmuli Rothstein said he generally supports the report, pointing toward its call to maintain regular outreach with Hillel, Chabad and the Jewish Studies Program.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a wonderful step for the University to take,\u201d Rothstein said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also commended the section about incident response and enforcement mechanisms.<\/p>\n \u201cThreats should be taken seriously. There\u2019s nothing wrong with a threat being taken seriously,\u201d Rothstein said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andrea Goldschmidt, an associate professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine and a member of the Pitt Jewish Community, said she is concerned that the report does not document any listening sessions, focus groups or interviews with Jewish faculty, staff and students, except for including the then-president of Hillel in the working group.\u00a0<\/p>\n Acknowledging that Hillel and Chabad may have been consulted, she said she felt that individuals should have also been consulted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Goldschmidt said that after reading antisemitism reports from other universities, she often noted direct input from the community, including quotes from interviews with community members.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt would [have added] a sense that you\u2019re actually basing your recommendations on the communities that are affected by the recommendations,\u201d Goldschmidt said.<\/p>\n Potential threats to academic freedom\n<\/p>\n Faculty members also believe some of the report\u2019s recommendations might lead to a restriction of academic freedom by equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mostern highlighted, among other concerns, a line from the report that reads, \u201cIn our recommendations, it is understood that antisemitism may be expressed as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist bias.\u201d<\/p>\n Some people consider criticism of Israel antisemitic while others don\u2019t, and debate<\/a> over the definition is extensive, including within academic circles.\u00a0<\/p>\n