Yale will apparently be ending a program to study anti-Semitism early because the program isn’t very good, or something. According to an Associated Press article in the Washington Post:
The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism was discontinued after a faculty review committee concluded it did not meet the university’s standards for research and teaching.
What, exactly, Yale’s standards for research and teaching are remain unclear.
Director of Strategic Communications Charles Hogen explained that the initiative wasn’t Yale-worthy because it didn’t “serve the research and teaching interests of some significant group of Yale faculty and . . . [wasn’t] sustained by the creative energy of a critical mass of Yale faculty.” Well that’s vague, isn’t it? What’s a critical mass here? The university will continue to offer its therapy dog program.
According to a piece by Jordana Horn about the same issue in the Jerusalem Post:
Sources who preferred to remain anonymous, however, said the closing of the center resulted from the center’s politically incorrect activities – that is, taking Muslims to task for anti- Semitic and anti-Jewish sentiments.
Yale, sources conjectured, had been angling to mend fences with the Middle Eastern Muslim population, and the Yale Initiative was a thorn in the university’s side.
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said that the Yale provost, Peter Salovey, has assured the faculty he “will support working groups studying anti-Semitism.”
