Posted on 11/29/21
| News Source: FOX News
A coalition that represents some 2,000 Orthodox Jewish rabbis condemned the Duke University student government's decision to deny recognition to a pro-Israel student group, claiming that the move demonstrated a "despicable double standard" on "Jew-hatred." The pro-Israel group had responded to criticism by inviting a student to engage in dialogue, but the student president had called that response "unacceptable."
"The right to reply when attacked is fundamental to civil discourse," Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director at the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), told Fox News in a statement on the letter, which he provided to Fox News. "Duke's Student Government, to the contrary, decided it's fine to slander a Jewish group but ‘unacceptable’ for that group to respond. It's hard to deny the double standard at play."
The Duke student senate had granted full recognition to a chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) on November 10, but Student Government President Christina Wang later vetoed the move. The senate then voted to uphold the veto on Nov. 17. Duke President Vincent E. Price and Provost Sally Kornbluth expressed concern about the revocation in a statement on Wednesday.
In a statement to student senators first reported by the Duke Chronicle, Wang claimed that SSI "singled out an individual student on their organization's social media account in a way that was unacceptable for any student group."