Dr David Hirsh is a senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, Unversity of London. He is Jewish and an eminent authority on antisemitism. That much has been enough to ensure he has not been made a Professor. Such is the appalling state of Humanities in UK Academia.
He has been smeared as a ‘far white supremacist’, a ‘Zionist‘ and an academic with ‘explicit racist history‘ by Sara Bafo. the outgoing President of Gooldmiths Student Union.
Incredibly Goldsmiths UCU (the trade union of the academics) is supporting those responsible for the smears. Dr Tara Povey is co-President of Goldsmiths UCU.
Seven ‘academics’ at Goldsmiths (including some UCU activists) signed the support letter for David Miller, the disgraced academic who was dismissed from Bristol University for antisemitism (Anastasia Stouraiti, Des Freedman, Feyzi Ismail, Marian Carty, Milly Williamson, Natalie Fenton, Susan Kelly).
Goldsmiths has failed to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, doubtlessly due to pressure from these and other academics.
The government has cut ties with the NUS. I doubt a Labour government would have done the same, notwithstanding Starmer’s modest progress in tackling Labour antisemitism. But it needs to go further. 20 academics are being made redundant at Goldsmiths. Let’s hope that the names include those supporting the smears of Dr Hirsh – and if not then that the numbers increase.
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Addendum: In 2021 these Goldsmiths ‘academics’ signed a petition attacking Glasgow University for apologising about an antisemitic article that was published in a peer review journal on the Glasgow University website:
Althea Greenan, Ben Seymour, Des Freedman, Gholam Khiabany, Marion Carty, Marjorie Mayo, Milly Williamson, Natalie Fenton
As David Collier commented: ‘They are not angry that the university published a paper full of errors and anti-Jewish conspiracy, but rather because the university apologised for doing so’.
Update
Goldsmiths has announced an ‘independent’ review into antisemitism in response to “reports of such behaviour”.
Here’s David Hirsh’s statement …..
We Are The 99% of Jews ............ 