16 | AUGUST 22 • 2024 

Management, emeritus, and 
professor of urban planning, notes 
that members of the academic 
community display ignorance when 
they issue statements against Israel. 
“I am amazed about how little 
some colleagues know about 
the history of the Middle East 
and Jews,” he says. He finds it 
overwhelming that people defend 
Hamas or use the word “context” 
when dealing with the murder and 
rape of Jews. 
What would have to change to 
make the campus feel safe for Jews? 
Dunietz answers, “Consequences. 
Disrupt campus life … break 
into buildings? There should be 
consequences for that.” 
At the University of Michigan 
in Ann Arbor, a pro-Palestinian 
encampment lasted for 30 days, 
until the administration forcibly 
removed the demonstrators on May 
21. 

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
In response to an encampment 
that popped up at Wayne State 
University, the WSU campus 
closed for in-person meetings, 
switching to remote learning only. 
The encampment stood for a week, 
until University President Kimberly 
Andrews Espy had law enforcement 
dismantle it on May 30. 
Matthew Lockwood, associate 
vice president of university 
communications at 
Wayne State, explained 
the decision: “The 
encampment presented 
legal, health and 
safety, and operational 
challenges for our 
community.” He 
specified that “no individual or 
group is permitted to claim campus 
property for their own use and 
deny others access to that property.” 
John Klein, professor of 
mathematics at Wayne State 
University, told Stacy Gittleman 
of the Jewish News about anti-

Israel activities at 
the university. In 
November, the Student 
Senate demanded that 
the university divest 
from Israeli companies 
in its portfolio. In 
December, the Wayne 
Academic Union (WAU) passed a 
resolution calling for “an immediate 
ceasefire” in the Israel-Gaza war. 
Klein observed, “As far as I know, 
it was the first time in WAU’s 
history that it decided to make a 
foreign policy statement. Although 
it demanded a ceasefire, it made no 
mention of release of the hostages.” 
The JN spoke with Hillel of 
Metro Detroit Director Miriam 
Starkman last spring. 
“It is a scary time to 
be a Jewish university 
student,” Starkman said. 
“This encampment was 
another example of the 
antisemitism that has 
permeated the protest 
culture. The sign saying, ‘Zionists 
are not welcome in Detroit,’ showed 
how exclusive and hateful this 
movement is.” 
Starkman said Hillel is grateful 
for President Espy and the WSU 
leadership, including WSU Police 
Chief Anthony Holt, for taking 
swift action. “Holt and his team 
keep our campus community safe, 
and we are lucky to have him,” 
Starkman said. 
“I am concerned about what this 
fall will bring,” Starkman said. “I 
hope the university will continue 
to take a strong approach to 
making sure all students feel safe 
and secure on campus and that 
everyone will have an opportunity 
to learn and not be subject to such 
hostilities.”

LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL 
UNIVERSITY
Larry Winer teaches in the arts 
and sciences, humanities, social 
sciences and communications at 

Lawrence Technological 
University. He wears 
his kippah as he walks 
around campus and 
when he teaches his 
classes. He reports 
that he has not seen 
or heard of any 
demonstrations on campus. 
No doubt the campus has 
students with strong political views, 
or with family ties to the Middle 
East, but “LTU is a STEM (Science, 
Technology, Engineering and 
Mathematics) school. Students just 
want to take their classes, get their 
degrees and get a job. Getting in 
and getting out.” 
Demonstrations at other schools, 
according to Winer, have often 
crossed the line from freedom of 
speech to prohibited behavior. “I 
teach American legal history. First 
amendment rights give you the 
right to say what you want to say, 
but not to block people’s access or 
to threaten people or to destroy 
property.”
An Israeli student at LTU, 
a member of the soccer team, 
Noam Nedivi, allegedly suffered 
from antisemitic harassment by 
his roommate. The university 
disciplinary system and the 
Southfield Police Department are 
involved in ongoing investigations 
of those incidents. 

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN – 
DEARBORN
Jamie Wraight teaches history at the 
University of Michigan-Dearborn 
and serves as director 
of the Voice/Vision 
Holocaust Survivor 
Oral History Archive. 
Wraight knows that 
UM-Dearborn has 
many students with 
ties to the Middle East, 
but the campus has not had much 
disruptive activism. He attributes 
that relative quiet to the life 
situation of many of the students: 

“Our students tend not to have so 
much time,” he said. They have 
“sometimes more than one job; 
they have family obligations and 
they’re trying to go to college.”
In its efforts to deal with tensions 
in an academically sound way, the 
school administration arranged 
a panel discussion of the issues 
back in November and convinced 
Wraight to take part. When he 
expressed hesitation about speaking 
on this topic, the organizers said 
that the program would have no 
integrity without him to balance 
the pro-Palestinian orientation of 
other panelists. The administration 
would not run the program without 
him. 
Wraight explains his hesitation: 
He teaches military history and 
Holocaust studies, but he is not an 
expert in Arab-Israel relations. 
His Holocaust history course 
runs nearly every semester, and it 
gets a good enrollment, including 
many Arab and other Muslim 
students, he says. In his experience, 
none of these students deny or 
minimize the Holocaust. 
The tenor of demonstrations 
and even of political discussions at 
other campuses disturbs Wraight. 
“I am not Jewish, but I am certainly 
not sympathetic” to ignorant 
vilification of Israel. 
He explains: “It is not bad that 
they are critical of Israel. I have 
been to Israel. I like Israel; but it is 
like any other political entity that 
should be open to criticism. That’s 
what democracy is all about. But 
people who should know better use 
inflammatory words like genocide, 
or carpet bombing; that kind of 
rhetoric lights fires. If you look 
at Hamas, the legal government 
of Gaza, they are the ones calling 
for wiping out the Jews from 
Israel; they are the ones calling for 
genocide.” 

Contributing writer Stacy Gittleman 

contributed to this report.

John Klein
Larry Winer 

Miriam 
Starkman 

Jamie 
Wraight

Matthew 
Lockwood

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