People may know very well by now that a) I work at Goldsmiths, University of London b) there was an inquiry into antisemitism at the college, costing around 450,000 pounds c) the report concluded that management had failed in its treatment of allegations of antisemitism, d) as a result the college decided to put in place an 'Action Plan', e) they did this without approaching or consulting Jewish members of staff, f) they have lied that Jewish members of staff were consulted. g.) they say that they are going to set up mandatory antisemitism awareness training for all students and members of staff.
The Action Plan they have put in place involves (so far) setting up a committee : an Advisory Board made up of people outside the university.
You can read the plan in full here:
Let me pick out number 12 as it's relevant to events leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day:
12. Holocaust Memorial Day and associated events
The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:
“Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”
In response Goldsmiths will:
Annual Holocaust Memorial Day - Fund and support annual Holocaust Memorial Day
event led by Jewish students and staff. TBC will be responsible for delivering this by the
end of academic year 2025/26.
Governance of the action plan
• Senior Responsible Officer: University Lead for Culture and Inclusion
• Steering Group: Religion and Belief Group
• External Oversight: Advisory panel including Jewish community representation
• Reporting: Six-monthly public progress reports and annual comprehensive review.
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From this let me pick out:
The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:
“Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”
In response Goldsmiths will...'
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I am a member of an ad hoc group of 14 Jewish members of staff. As far as we know there are no more than 2 or 3 other members of staff who self-identify as Jewish. If we're wrong about this, then it can only be because none of those Jewish members of staff have approached us, either positively or negatively.
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is proceeding this year (ie on Jan 27) without anyone from management consulting us. This is clearly in breach of the college's own commitment.
On one specific detail, the college produced a recommended reading list for HMD. On staff at the college, they have a someone (me) who has written 4 books on the Holocaust as it has affected his family and produced a 40 minute video including photos, maps, documents etc. In addition to this I've had something like 10 years experience of working with some 20,000 school students and teachers working with these books, as well as giving talks at the Wiener Holocaust Library, and for the AJR - The Association of Jewish Refugees.
If we put this together, there is a clear attitude coming from the college's management, that we are not the kind of Jews that they want to work with. Their problem is that we are ( we allege) most of the Jews in the staff.
There are of course various critical words that we could use to describe what's going on here. The author Miranda Fricker did some theoretical work in this field building on anti-racist studies and in this case she called it
Epistemic Injustice:
this concept highlights how prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word based on their identity (race, culture, gender).
She added:
Testimonial Injustice: When an individual or group's contribution is ignored or undervalued (e.g., a minority employee's idea is ignored in a meeting).
Of course we have other terms, 'prejudice', 'discrimination', 'racism', and, yes, irony of ironies, 'antisemitism'. I mean what do you call it when management decides to ignore what their half a million quid report told them to do, and work with Jewish members of staff in their college?
If I felt like racialising the matter, I'd call it 'Jewsplaining'. As far as we know, no one in management is Jewish. In other words, they are telling us how HMD will be memorialised. (Another irony for you: what will I be doing on HMD? I'm booked to sit in a studio in London, and talk to one local radio station after another all over the country about HMD. This will take me something like 2 hours. In short, the national broadcaster thinks it's OK for me to talk about HMD but my own college (where I'm a prof, does not. Is that worth a 'lols'? I think it is.
The latest developments are:
we have written to management in several different ways about this. (Of course we have!)
So far , we haven't had a reply and HMD is now less than a week away.
One last point: we're not sitting on our bums doing nothing but complain about what they throw at us. We're organising a teach-in for February 26, to talk about 'Antisemitism and anti-racism: alternative voices and traditions'.
I think we may need a quick speech on the theme of 'Management? They must be having a laugh. Jewsplaining on show.'