Recently, a major kerfuffle broke out over a commencement address at the University of Michigan. (See photo above. Courtesy of Derek Peterson.) It was an odd but predictable affair. The speech actually went down well with its audience of graduates and onlooking proud parents. It received loud applause. But, for daring to praise pro-Palestinian student activists, the University of Michigan, in response to complaints, disowned the speaker and issued an apology for the offense taken.
Scan the headlines relating to higher education in America, and one is treated to an endless stream of academic cowardice: canceled speakers, rebuked and sometimes fired professors, and students suffering all sorts of penalties. The common variable is Palestine. The administrative staff at universities is working overtime to suppress any dissent on Israel in response to donor pressure, Zionist student agitators, and, most ominously, state and federal pressure. The Trump Administration, in particular, is basically running shakedown operations against private and even public universities for alleged antisemitism, which is merely code for pro-Palestinian speech that condemns Israeli genocide and apartheid. Some universities have even adopted the highly contentious IHRA definition of antisemitism, a project started by Zionists to rebrand opposition to Israel and Zionism as a bigotry against Jews as a people.
(^^^ This NYT headline makes no sense; push Hamas on what? It’s about donors pushing universities on domestic pro-Israel politics.)
Since October 2023, billionaire donors have used their vast wealth—and the threat of withdrawing it—to demand a severe crackdown on student protesters expressing solidarity with Palestine. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman followed through on threats to suspend donations to Columbia University in response to their alma mater’s handling of pro-Palestinian student protests. Cooperman went on to describe students organizing for Palestinian liberation as “fucking crazy”. Ronald Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder Cosmetics company fortune, pulled his donations from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, while Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, called for Wharton alumni and donors to “close their chequebooks until President Liz Magill and Chairman Scott Bok resign.”
Even Jewish professors in Jewish Studies have been impacted:
“Jewish studies is at the precipice of a cliff in America,” said Shaul Magid, a professor of Jewish studies at Harvard. “It’s being hijacked by a particular political agenda and somebody has to get ahold of the wheel.”
It is an open secret that Zionist donors have played a major role in pushing for the crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. What’s remarkable about the air of righteousness from both administrators and donors is that they are not defenders of some noble academic culture, but rather active participants in the debasement of American freedom on behalf of a rogue foreign state. The donors — who played an outsized role in the era known as the Corporate University — deserve plenty of scrutiny. If universities are going to do their bidding in the name of “tolerance,” it is worth investigating whether these donors themselves are paragons of virtue or rank bigots and enablers and backers of violence against Palestinians.
Let us remember that for decades, universities took money from the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, which was the “taproot,” to quote the New York Attorney General Letitia James, of the opioid epidemic. Even when OxyContin was in the news as a major source of the addiction crisis, universities (and museums) were still keen to take the Sacklers’ blood money. Tufts University even delisted a book on its recommended reading list for its med students because it was critical of the Sacklers.
With that in mind, we decided to look into some of the Zionist donors to American universities and their connections with the Israeli settler movement that is displacing Palestinians from their homes with ever-increasing violence and impunity.
Roger Hertog:
Billionaire Ira Rennert, financier Roger Hertog and the US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, are also among prominent Jewish-American donors to settlement causes
Hertog is president and chairman of the Tikvah Fund, a conservative, free-market-oriented think tank and philanthropy that hosts and funds a wide range of programs, including educational seminars in the occupied West Bank.
The country’s leading grand-strategy program, Yale University’s, is supported by a $17.5 million endowment and has received generous backing from the legendary financier Roger M. Hertog.
The neoconservative financier Roger Hertog is funding “grand strategy” programs at Columbia, Duke, Temple, the University of Texas at Austin, and (until recently) the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Schusterman Family:
The Schusterman Family Foundation portrays itself as a supporter of progressive issues while simultaneously donating to “hawkish, pro-Israel causes,” The Intercept reported.
So this is one reason why some American institutions are teaming up with Israeli universities on stolen land and shutting down students and faculty in support of human rights. And this is just scratching the surface, but a thorough review is beyond the ability of this small operation.
