Wellesley College President rejects extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric, defying the stance of school’s faculty

‘Anti-Zionist speech can, in fact, create a hostile environment for many of our students,’ the president reaffirmed.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Wellesley College President Paula Johnson has pushed back on faculty pressuring her to condone certain anti-Israel rhetoric on campus, stating in an open letter that the Massachusetts school interprets “some” anti-Zionist speech as harmful to Jewish students.

Johnson, who has served as college president since July 2016, made the declaration on Saturday in response to a faculty letter demanding that she go on record saying that no criticism of Israel or Zionism should be described as antisemitic.

“I want to be clear that Wellesley will not make such a statement,” Johnson said. “Some anti-Israel and anti-Zionist speech can, in fact, create a hostile environment for many of our students.”

Johnson added that the faculty members’ own statements in their letter, which accused Israel of committing a “genocidal assault on Gaza,” are part of the problem.

“The letter ignores how opinions and statements of the kind expressed in the letter can threaten the existence of Israel and increase fears for Jewish students on our campus,” she wrote, emphasizing the college’s commitment to balancing its policies prohibiting hate speech with its mission to foster academic freedom and free speech. “Again, Wellesley strongly rejects any invitation to contribute to these harms.”

Wellesley College, the alma mater of former US Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, is currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) over allegations that it contravened Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to respond to an antisemitic incident that took place in October.

The complaint that prompted the government’s investigation of the college was filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Nov 9. It cited an incident in which a residential staff employee of Munger Hall sent an email to students that said “there should be no space, no consideration, and no support for Zionism with the Wellesley College community.” The employee, who was never punished, went on to call Jewish students who complained about the email “some weak bitches fr [for real]” on a personal Instagram account that is accessible to the student residents she supervises and serves.

October’s incident is not Wellesley College’s first antisemitism scandal. In 2022, the editorial board of The Wellesley News, the campus’ official newspaper, endorsed The Mapping Project — an American pro-BDS organization, which promotes a conspiracy theory purporting to show a connection between Zionism, police brutality, and “the colonization of Palestine” — a decision the paper’s student-led staff later rescinded.

Johnson unequivocally denounced The Wellesley News’ endorsement of the organization, saying that “Wellesley College rejects the Mapping Project for promoting antisemitism.”

Johnson added that “claiming that Jewish people and organizations are responsible for a host of societal harms and calling for action against them is, by definition, antisemitism.”

The clash between Johnson and Wellesley’s faculty comes amid a surge in antisemitism on college campuses across the West. Universities have been hubs of such antisemitism since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, with students and faculty both demonizing Israel and rationalizing the Palestinian terror group’s onslaught. Incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have also increased. As a result, Jewish students have expressed feeling unsafe and unprotected on campuses. In some cases, Jewish communities on campuses have been forced to endure threats of rape and mass slaughter.

A recent poll, released by Hillel International, found that 37 percent of Jewish college students have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus since the Oct. 7 atrocities, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 240 others taken as hostages into Gaza. The survey also found that 35 percent of respondents said there have been acts of hate or violence against Jews on campus. A majority of those surveyed said they were unsatisfied with their university’s response to those incidents.

anti-SemitismPaula Johnsonpro-IsraelWellesley College