2017 was a bad year at Fresno State. 2018 looks to be even worse.
In the winter of last year, Lars Maischak had tweeted, "To save American democracy, Trump must hang. The sooner and the higher, the better. #TheResistance."
The next day he inquired, “Has anyone started soliciting money and design drafts for a monument honoring the Trump assassin, yet?”
Toward the end of the week, he proposed the mass murder of Republicans, “Justice = The execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant.”
Maischak was a history adjunct at Fresno State whose topics had included, “Marx and Hegel for Historians.”
President Castro eventually clarified that calls to murder the President of the United States and millions of Republicans, “do not reflect the position of the University.”
Castro failed to clearly condemn Maischak’s murderous tweets. Instead Maischak took a voluntary leave “conducting research off campus”. His university faculty page appears to be active.
Had an adjunct called for the murder of Obama, the reaction would have been very different.
Now, Randa Jarrar, a tenured Muslim professor in Fresno State's Department of English, responded to Barbara Bush's death by calling the deceased 92-year-old woman a "racist".
“I’m happy the witch is dead,” she gloated. "Can’t wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise."
“I will never be fired,” Jarrar then boasted in a tweet that tagged President Castro.
Once again, President Castro stepped forward to announce that Jarrar’s jeering of a deceased woman and her mourning family was not made as a “representative of Fresno State.”
But you have to wonder about that.
"One set of tweets, as horrible as they were, do not define us," Castro claimed.
But Randa Jarrar has an ugly history long predating her latest controversy. Jarrar is a notorious BDS activist whose campaigns against Israel could cross the line into a defense of Islamic terrorists.
Jarrar had signed on to a letter condemning Israel for fighting back against Hamas. Among other disturbing claims, its signatories declared that they reject the idea "that Hamas is an irredeemable terrorist organization" and "recognize Hamas as a democratically elected ruling party."
Hamas is a genocidal Islamic terrorist group that has called for the mass murder of Jews.
The first signatory to the letter was Steven Salaita: the infamous racist who lost a job offer at the University of Illinois after celebrating the kidnapping of three Jewish teens murdered by Hamas.
"Zionists: transforming "antisemitism" from something horrible into something honorable since 1948," he later tweeted.
Another signatory was Amiri Baraka who lost his New Jersey poet laureate gig after claiming that the Jews had been warned to stay home on 9/11. Another famously anti-Semitic poem of his read, “I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured... So come for the rent, jewboys.”
Matters turned ugly at Fresno State last year when Jews were blamed for an academic turf battle over the Edward Said Chair in Middle East Studies. Edward Said, a terrorist supporter and academic fraud, has often been a lightning rod. But this time the lightning had a distinctly anti-Semitic flavor. The “Jewish community” and “Jewish faculty” were variously blamed for Fresno State’s failure to fill the chair.
The truth though was that departmental disputes had held up the process not a Jewish conspiracy. But Randa Jarrar had instead circulated conspiracy theories and threatened that, “any other outcome will... will alienate faculty like myself and will severely damage our campus's reputation across the world.”
But Jarrar has already done more to severely damage Fresno State’s reputation than anyone else could.
And Jarrar, like Maischak, isn’t an aberration.
2017 wasn’t just a bad year because of Maischak. It was also the year that Greg Thatcher, an assistant professor of public health, decided to encourage his class to vandalize pro-life chalk messages while declaring, “College campuses are not free speech areas.” The resulting lawsuit noted that, “Thatcher returned with a group of approximately seven to ten Fresno State students. Acting at his direction, these students erased, obscured, and defaced Plaintiffs’ messages. One of them even stole Plaintiffs’ chalk and used it to write pro-abortion messages on the sidewalks.” The lawsuit was settled for $17,000.
Maischak, Jarrar and Thatcher are symptoms of the sickness at Fresno State.
Fresno is part of the California State University system. And yet despite that it’s a place where hatred thrives. Why did Randa Jarrar feel so confident that she could not only spew hate at a dying woman but misdirect critics to a suicide hotline number undermining its work saving lives by answering phone calls?
“I will never be fired,” Jarrar had gloatingly tweeted.
Fresno State’s spokeswoman could only convolutedly respond, "To answer the technical question: Can she not be fired? The answer is no."
Lars Maischak wasn’t fired after calling for the murder of the President of the United States. Greg Thatcher wasn’t fired after encouraging his students to erase the free speech of other students.
Randa Jarrar had every reason in the world to believe that she wouldn’t be fired. And she still does.
"This was beyond free speech. This was disrespectful," President Castro said of Jarrar's tweet.
As ugly as Jarrar’s tweets were, why were they worse than Maischak’s murderous rants? Maischak’s calls for Trump’s death actually resulted in an investigation by the Secret Service. But Castro responded by expressing appreciation for his unapologetic apology. How did Jarrar go further beyond free speech?
Barbara Bush was an apolitical and likable personality who had just passed away. The outrage over Jarrar’s comments came from a broader spectrum than the anger over Maischak’s tweets.
What Maischak did was more unacceptable legally, but more acceptable socially.
Calling for President Trump’s murder is more socially acceptable on the left than mocking Barbara Bush’s death. President Castro wasn’t concerned about the legality or decency of the tweets. He was reacting to the public perception of them among the demographic with the biggest sway on campus.
But Jarrar’s hatred came out of the same academic safe space where Maischak’s ravings had been nurtured. The lack of decisive action in the Maischak and Thatcher cases sent Jarrar the message that she had nothing to worry about. And the aftermath of both cases testify that she really doesn’t.
After an investigation, some sort of half-hearted apology (that will eventually be disavowed), a bone thrown to the outraged critics, everything will be back to the way it was. And Jarrar will go on indoctrinating vulnerable young minds with her twisted hateful thoughts about America and Israel.
That’s the best case scenario.
The likeliest outcome is that Jarrar’s colleagues, in and out of Fresno State, will rally to her defense. They will claim that the entire controversy was stirred up by Islamophobic sites against a Muslim professor. Jarrar will claim that she was the victim of numerous death threats. The media will switch to covering the supposed death threats. Just as in the Salaita and Maischak cases, they will obscure what she said.
Petitions will denounce President Castro for surrendering to “Islamophobes” by criticizing Jarrar.
As an older, tenured professor wired into an anti-Israel activist circle and the PEN gang, Randa Jarrar has far more support options. And she will continue collecting the $100,000 salary that she bragged about.
And Fresno State will go on serving as a safe space for faculty who don’t just hate, but lust for death.
“Execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant” Lars Maischak had tweeted.
"Can’t wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise,” Randa Jarrar tweeted.
This isn’t just hate. These are calls for death. For the murder and demise of living people.
Fresno State has gone beyond nurturing radicals and is providing a safe space for a murderous cult of Islamic and leftist hate. It’s not enough for President Castro to disavow their words and walk away.
There must be an investigation that explores why Fresno State has become a safe space for hate. And why its faculty feel comfortable and confident calling for the deaths of their political opponents.
Because it’s hate, not the campus winery or planetarium, that Fresno State is becoming known for.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
In the winter of last year, Lars Maischak had tweeted, "To save American democracy, Trump must hang. The sooner and the higher, the better. #TheResistance."
The next day he inquired, “Has anyone started soliciting money and design drafts for a monument honoring the Trump assassin, yet?”
Toward the end of the week, he proposed the mass murder of Republicans, “Justice = The execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant.”
Maischak was a history adjunct at Fresno State whose topics had included, “Marx and Hegel for Historians.”
President Castro eventually clarified that calls to murder the President of the United States and millions of Republicans, “do not reflect the position of the University.”
Castro failed to clearly condemn Maischak’s murderous tweets. Instead Maischak took a voluntary leave “conducting research off campus”. His university faculty page appears to be active.
Had an adjunct called for the murder of Obama, the reaction would have been very different.
Now, Randa Jarrar, a tenured Muslim professor in Fresno State's Department of English, responded to Barbara Bush's death by calling the deceased 92-year-old woman a "racist".
“I’m happy the witch is dead,” she gloated. "Can’t wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise."
“I will never be fired,” Jarrar then boasted in a tweet that tagged President Castro.
Once again, President Castro stepped forward to announce that Jarrar’s jeering of a deceased woman and her mourning family was not made as a “representative of Fresno State.”
But you have to wonder about that.
"One set of tweets, as horrible as they were, do not define us," Castro claimed.
But Randa Jarrar has an ugly history long predating her latest controversy. Jarrar is a notorious BDS activist whose campaigns against Israel could cross the line into a defense of Islamic terrorists.
Jarrar had signed on to a letter condemning Israel for fighting back against Hamas. Among other disturbing claims, its signatories declared that they reject the idea "that Hamas is an irredeemable terrorist organization" and "recognize Hamas as a democratically elected ruling party."
Hamas is a genocidal Islamic terrorist group that has called for the mass murder of Jews.
The first signatory to the letter was Steven Salaita: the infamous racist who lost a job offer at the University of Illinois after celebrating the kidnapping of three Jewish teens murdered by Hamas.
"Zionists: transforming "antisemitism" from something horrible into something honorable since 1948," he later tweeted.
Another signatory was Amiri Baraka who lost his New Jersey poet laureate gig after claiming that the Jews had been warned to stay home on 9/11. Another famously anti-Semitic poem of his read, “I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured... So come for the rent, jewboys.”
Matters turned ugly at Fresno State last year when Jews were blamed for an academic turf battle over the Edward Said Chair in Middle East Studies. Edward Said, a terrorist supporter and academic fraud, has often been a lightning rod. But this time the lightning had a distinctly anti-Semitic flavor. The “Jewish community” and “Jewish faculty” were variously blamed for Fresno State’s failure to fill the chair.
The truth though was that departmental disputes had held up the process not a Jewish conspiracy. But Randa Jarrar had instead circulated conspiracy theories and threatened that, “any other outcome will... will alienate faculty like myself and will severely damage our campus's reputation across the world.”
But Jarrar has already done more to severely damage Fresno State’s reputation than anyone else could.
And Jarrar, like Maischak, isn’t an aberration.
2017 wasn’t just a bad year because of Maischak. It was also the year that Greg Thatcher, an assistant professor of public health, decided to encourage his class to vandalize pro-life chalk messages while declaring, “College campuses are not free speech areas.” The resulting lawsuit noted that, “Thatcher returned with a group of approximately seven to ten Fresno State students. Acting at his direction, these students erased, obscured, and defaced Plaintiffs’ messages. One of them even stole Plaintiffs’ chalk and used it to write pro-abortion messages on the sidewalks.” The lawsuit was settled for $17,000.
Maischak, Jarrar and Thatcher are symptoms of the sickness at Fresno State.
Fresno is part of the California State University system. And yet despite that it’s a place where hatred thrives. Why did Randa Jarrar feel so confident that she could not only spew hate at a dying woman but misdirect critics to a suicide hotline number undermining its work saving lives by answering phone calls?
“I will never be fired,” Jarrar had gloatingly tweeted.
Fresno State’s spokeswoman could only convolutedly respond, "To answer the technical question: Can she not be fired? The answer is no."
Lars Maischak wasn’t fired after calling for the murder of the President of the United States. Greg Thatcher wasn’t fired after encouraging his students to erase the free speech of other students.
Randa Jarrar had every reason in the world to believe that she wouldn’t be fired. And she still does.
"This was beyond free speech. This was disrespectful," President Castro said of Jarrar's tweet.
As ugly as Jarrar’s tweets were, why were they worse than Maischak’s murderous rants? Maischak’s calls for Trump’s death actually resulted in an investigation by the Secret Service. But Castro responded by expressing appreciation for his unapologetic apology. How did Jarrar go further beyond free speech?
Barbara Bush was an apolitical and likable personality who had just passed away. The outrage over Jarrar’s comments came from a broader spectrum than the anger over Maischak’s tweets.
What Maischak did was more unacceptable legally, but more acceptable socially.
Calling for President Trump’s murder is more socially acceptable on the left than mocking Barbara Bush’s death. President Castro wasn’t concerned about the legality or decency of the tweets. He was reacting to the public perception of them among the demographic with the biggest sway on campus.
But Jarrar’s hatred came out of the same academic safe space where Maischak’s ravings had been nurtured. The lack of decisive action in the Maischak and Thatcher cases sent Jarrar the message that she had nothing to worry about. And the aftermath of both cases testify that she really doesn’t.
After an investigation, some sort of half-hearted apology (that will eventually be disavowed), a bone thrown to the outraged critics, everything will be back to the way it was. And Jarrar will go on indoctrinating vulnerable young minds with her twisted hateful thoughts about America and Israel.
That’s the best case scenario.
The likeliest outcome is that Jarrar’s colleagues, in and out of Fresno State, will rally to her defense. They will claim that the entire controversy was stirred up by Islamophobic sites against a Muslim professor. Jarrar will claim that she was the victim of numerous death threats. The media will switch to covering the supposed death threats. Just as in the Salaita and Maischak cases, they will obscure what she said.
Petitions will denounce President Castro for surrendering to “Islamophobes” by criticizing Jarrar.
As an older, tenured professor wired into an anti-Israel activist circle and the PEN gang, Randa Jarrar has far more support options. And she will continue collecting the $100,000 salary that she bragged about.
And Fresno State will go on serving as a safe space for faculty who don’t just hate, but lust for death.
“Execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant” Lars Maischak had tweeted.
"Can’t wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise,” Randa Jarrar tweeted.
This isn’t just hate. These are calls for death. For the murder and demise of living people.
Fresno State has gone beyond nurturing radicals and is providing a safe space for a murderous cult of Islamic and leftist hate. It’s not enough for President Castro to disavow their words and walk away.
There must be an investigation that explores why Fresno State has become a safe space for hate. And why its faculty feel comfortable and confident calling for the deaths of their political opponents.
Because it’s hate, not the campus winery or planetarium, that Fresno State is becoming known for.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
Comments
Cut off Federal funds, including research grants.
ReplyDeleteDonors should stop contributing.
Any Jew, any white person, any straight white man who either gives them money to attend the school or takes money to work at or for the school makes themselves part of the problem and if they do not take themselves out of the school then they must be endlessly verbally attacked and abused, shamed, excoriated and shunned from normal society.
ReplyDeleteThe honorific "professor"--when applied to some of the faculty of Fresno State--seems as appropriate as applying the title "Rev." when speaking of Al Sharpton.
ReplyDeleteOne senses in both that the words are misapplied, unearned, even antithetical.
The deeper undercurrent to the Randa Jarrar controversy--the theme that, to me, underscores all that she represents--is "creeping sharia." Ms. Jarrar's 'calls for death' are typical of an imam's invocation of a fatwah; the former's only lacks the authority of the latter.
Further, Ms. Jarrar knows the Law, much as do thousands of other Muslims in America, who have learned to use our legal system to insulate themselves, to provoke, to hinder and to generally disrupt America as it goes about its business.
I long for a time when the West will awaken from its slumber, realize that it is in a one-sided, declared war (declared time and again by Islam) and take the steps necessary to begin the arduous process of engaging Islam head on.
Pushing back--hard--at the Randa Jarrars of this world would be a start.
I saw a picture of her down to the waist. her stomach is so huge she looks like a hot air balloon with a Betty Boop head on it. And they wonder why people despise Muslims? Bet she went to school years ago on taxpayer money, like most of these radical creeps. These people under estimate the average American Patriot, just like the British did in 1776. California will drop into the sea before America falls to these kind of people. Israel will wipe out half the Middle East if pushed into a corner. Our enemies keep asking for it. One day, probably without warning, they will get it.
ReplyDeleteInstead of a "hate problem", there should be a "money porobem" after this stupid fiasco.
ReplyDeleteAmerica would be benefit greatly from permanently closing-down its many colleges and universities that have become strongholds of anti-American hatred and anti-democracy and anti-Semitism.
ReplyDeleteMany experts now question the financial value of college degrees; and reducing the number of colleges and universities would reduce student-loan-debts and increase the number of productive workers in America’s labor force.
============================================
Short Blog Articles about American anti-Semitism:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-seven-times-stronger.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-jewish-nyc-mayor.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-nyt-erases-israel-from-map.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/03/guest-postnyt-vs-israel.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-how-to-convict-new-york-times.html
Remember this:
ReplyDelete"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311701/Brit-Luke-Angel-banned-US-sending-Barack-Obama-abusive-e-mail.html"?
If she's fired, it will be for giving out the Arizona Help hotline number as her own...that is not exactly kosher. Arizona is looking for ways to bill Fresno State for the flood of calls.
ReplyDeleteFreedom of speech means permitting even that which you disagree. Not matter how execrable it is. As a young Marine in the early 80's, we had a banner on the wall of the ready room of the helicopter squadron I was assigned to:
"First to go, last to know, we will defend to the death your right to be misinformed, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS"
I honestly hope she's not fired. Because what will happen is the Mizzoo effect...where Professor Melissa Click screamed for "muscle" to force a student journalist away from their "protest" area. The blow back, a 40% reduction in donations and a 1/3 loss of incoming freshman, forced the university to shutter 7 dorms, lay off dozens of professors (but oddly enough, not a single administrator) as well as support staff. That is the future of Fresno State. It's already happening, and will only snow ball.
Daniel, your column of Aperil 23, 2018, could not have been more prescient.
ReplyDeleteRanda Jarrar is already invoking the victim strategy.
Proclaiming that she is being persecuted because of Islamophobia.
The good news is that California is allowing Calexit secessionist activity to proceed. If the Golden State is successful, than America can impose visa restrictions to keep Jarrar and her fellow promulgators of schadenfreude out of the United States.
Your column of Aperil 23, 2018, could not have been more prescient.
ReplyDeleteRanda Jarrar is already invoking the victim strategy.
Proclaiming that she is being persecuted because of Islamophobia.
The good news is that California is allowing Calexit secessionist activity to proceed. If the Golden State is successful, than America can impose visa restrictions to keep Jarrar and her fellow promulgators of schadenfreude out of the United States.
"Randa Jarrar has an ugly history" and I would add that she is truly an ugly person on the inside and out.
ReplyDeleteCan we no longer share your articles on Facebook?
ReplyDeleteDaniel, about anti-Semitism in general, I think you may find the attached article about Turkey and Erdogan interesting. I just hope that the USA will return to the Constitution, and that states with a high degree of self-sovereignty will continue to exist, and I believe that multi-culturalism is un-workable BS. Israel certainly has the right to exist. The discrimination suffered by Jews in Arab lands and their expulsion from those lands at the creation of modern Israel was the same ill treatment that Arabs complain of today. I imagine globalists see the economic domination game as all or nothing. A unipolar world will be a nightmare for ordinary people, IMHO. It won't matter which side wins such a struggle (Islamists, crony capitalists, Sino-elitists etc.), the totalitarianism over the masses will be just as tyrannical. That's why I admire the US Constitution and wish to see it adhered to. Here's that link:
ReplyDeletehttps://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/04/islamic-state-recep-tayyip-erdogan-daryl-mccann/
Leftists want kids to hate both their parents, liberals more modestly, only want kids to hate their dads. Other than that they agree in hate of police, armed forces, church, Country POTUS… islamists are just an always welcome helping hand.
ReplyDeleteEvery feral government action has consequences and the consequences have secondary and tertiary consequences, ad infinitum.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it is with Whomsoever's idea it was to permit the import of the manifestation of evil its false fuehrer called "islam:" SUBMISSION. The form of totalitarianism historically intimately-allied-with and closest-to-Nazism's ideology there has ever been.
Those responsible surely knew then and know now that everywhere on Earth islam has ever been allowed to become established it has hesperophobically-psychopathically imposed its evil.
This, the only fact to be had from islam's 1400 years of history and more than a half billion brutally-buggered and butchered bodies. This simple fact its only-ever "contribution."
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