 JANUARY 14 • 2021 | 23

A

Jewish student who 
attended the SOAS 
University of London 
(School of Oriental and African 
Studies) has received a full 
tuition refund (15,000 British 
pounds — slightly over 
$20,000) after filing a complaint 
to the school regarding the toxic 
antisemitism he experienced as 
a student there. The university 
will also conduct an investiga-
tion into his claims. 
The news of the refund and 
investigation came on Dec. 29, 
after the student, Noah Lewis, 
appealed an original decision 
from the school that offered an 
apology for the emotional trau-
ma Lewis endured and com-
pensation of only 500 pounds 
— about $680.
The original decision “didn’t 

really acknowledge any of my 
concerns, and they offered me 
essentially 500 pounds to just 
get lost, in a way,
” Lewis, who 
now attends law school at the 
University of Detroit-Mercy and 
University of Windsor, told the 
Detroit Jewish News.
Lewis feels the new decision 
to refund his entire tuition 
legitimizes 
his claim that 
the school has 
a culture of 
antisemitism 
and inflexi-
bility when it 
comes to dif-
fering viewpoints. 
“It’s a very left-wing school, 
which isn’t an issue,
” Lewis said. 
But “the best way I can say it 
is you’re either with them [or] 

against them … Being support-
ive of Israel, or not necessarily 
agreeing that Israel is the biggest 
threat to peace and all that stuff, 
puts you in a different camp.
” 
Lewis attended the school 
during the 2018-2019 academic 
year, choosing the program 
for its prestigious international 
studies and diplomacy curricu-
lum. He knew the topic of Israel 
would come up in his classes, 
and he was prepared to receive 
some pushback for his support 
of the country.

‘ZIONISM EQUALS NAZISM’
But he wasn’t prepared for the 
degree of anti-Israel sentiment 
he perceived in his courses. 
Zionism was sometimes com-
pared to Nazism, he told the JN. 
Every day on his way to class 
he’
d see a sign taped to the win-
dow of the building that said 
“SOAS for BDS,
” referring to the 
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions 
movement. 
“It was always putting Israel 
into the negative way,
” he said. 
“They promote themselves as 
being a very diverse learning 
environment, which is abso-
lutely true, but it stops when it 
comes to Jewish people wanting 
to be heard.
” 
Lewis decided to leave the 
program early, after classes had 
finished but before he wrote 
a dissertation. He had toyed 
with the idea of writing about 
cultural bias against Israel at the 
United Nations, 
but he’
d already 
gotten backlash 
from peers 
when he posted 
his idea on an 
online forum. 
He realized it 
was unlikely the idea would get 
approved or that he’
d find a pro-
fessor willing to help him with 
the project. 
When he got back home to 

Toronto in the spring of 2019, 
he began to put together his 
thoughts on the climate at the 
school. 
“I’
d already known about 
what the school was, and I start-
ed to hear that there were a lot 
more instances from in the past 
and people who had expressed 
similar views to me,
” he said. 
That led to the submission 
of an official complaint to 
the school, and to the sub-
sequent appeal. The Lawfare 
Project, which provides pro 
bono legal services to Jewish 
people engaged in civil rights 
cases, and UK Lawyers for 
Israel (UKLFI) assisted Lewis 
throughout the process. 
The SOAS appeal panel said 
in its decision that it was clear 
the original complaint hadn’t 
been properly investigated. 
“The panel considered the 
objection that it would be inap-
propriate for every complaint 
from any individual student to 
trigger a full scale and metic-
ulous, perhaps external, inves-
tigation of the whole culture 
at the School and the Student 
Union … But it also came to the 
view that in this instance, there 
was a prima facie case which 
did warrant such a full inves-
tigation,
” the panel said in its 
statement, which was quoted on 
the UKFLI website. 
Lewis is satisfied with the out-
come of the appeal and hopes to 
see real change come out of the 
situation. A new director of the 
school, South African Professor 
Adam Habib, joins this month. 
“I’m very happy that I was 
able to raise awareness, and I’m 
hoping that the new director 
who’s coming into place at the 
school won’t try to do anything 
to interfere with or prevent this 
ongoing investigation because I 
still think that’s something very 
important that needs to go on,
” 
he said. 

U-D student gets $20,000 tuition 
refund from SOAS college in London.

MAYA GOLDMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Payback for 
Antisemitism

Noah 

Lewis

AntiSemitism

the

Project

AntiSemitism
AntiSemitism

