Bobby Miller of National Review Online wrote an article that was published on November 23, 2022 under the title: “University of Vermont Fails to Confront Antisemitism on Campus”.
Miller sought to establish his neutrality in this matter at the start of
his discussion, and so he began it as follows: “Far too often, charges of antisemitism have been used as a cudgel
to silence those who are critical of the Jewish State’s policies.
Those concerned about informal censorship regimes, should be wary of this trend.
However, there are times
when the difference between legitimate criticism and actual prejudice is
revealed. One such example has emerged in Vermont”.
Miller called the example he is about to
describe “outright xenophobia,” and proceeded to tell of students who were
throwing stones at the Jewish student-life center on campus. Without telling
how the Jews were responding to such acts or what happened that caused the
skirmish to start between the two groups of students, Bobby Miller went on to
tell the rest of the story as follows: When asked to cease their behavior, one
of the perpetrators asked the person beseeching their goodwill, “Are you
Jewish?”
And this was enough for Bobby Miller of National Review Online to reach
a conclusion as to what the incident has revealed. This done, he accused the
University of Vermont of ignoring what he deemed to be a serious occurrence.
Here is what he wrote: “There’s
no way that this can be construed as anything other than explicit antisemitism.
Yet the school refuses to acknowledge what’s happening.
At this point, I feel compelled to do something I don’t like doing: talk
about my experience living in a society whose English language I learned as an
adult. I piled the language on top of something like half a dozen other languages
and dialects I had to learn while growing up in many parts of the world in the
midst of cultures that communicated in disparate languages and accents.
During the 58 years or so that I have been in Canada, I lived something
like 200,000 waking hours during which time I was asked “Where I was from” or I
was the one to quietly wonder – perhaps once every hour – from where someone I had
encountered by chance or seen on television could be.
Some people even ventured to guess – based on my looks or my (barely
detectable) accent – that I must be from Southern Europe or Central Asia or
even a Jew. To satisfy their curiosity, others asked if I spoke Urdu, or Greek
or Portuguese or whatever. As to my own curiosity, I satisfied it by asking
others: “What kind of a name is this?” Or I ran to my computer and entered the
name of a television contributor to determine if what they say had something to
do with who they were, or what motivates them.
Such habits come to us naturally because in this part of the world, we
live in the multilingual Tower of Babble where confusion often happens because
the intent behind what is said can vary from one culture to another even when
the translation is done by experts. So, imagine what goes on in your
subconscious mind when, for example, you’re trying to determine on the spot
what a used car salesman is saying to you, or if you should trust him. This
does not make you a racist; it is just the way we are made.
Still, whereas no one has ever complained for being asked where he or
she may be from, the Jews found a way to make that question a cause célèbre by taking their case to the regular media where they
bashed a university to their hearts’ content. They did so pretending they suffered immensely, and complaining that the university
did nothing to alleviate their pain or take measures that would rectify a
situation no one but the fanatic Jews, believes even exists.
Here, in condensed form, is how Bobby Miller scolded the University of
Vermont, calling the statement issued by its administrator an affront to the
Jewish community at UVM and a shunting of the administration’s basic
institutional responsibility:
“Rather than denouncing and combating
antisemitism on campus, the university’s president, has rejected criticism of
his leadership as an uninformed narrative, saying that there is no doubt
antisemitism exists in the world and, despite our best efforts in our
community. He called out those guilty of exploitation of fear and divisiveness
who are advancing false claims that UVM failed to respond to complaints of
antisemitic behavior for creating confusion and a sense of insecurity for the
entire community”.
To witch Bobby Miller responded as follows:
“Imagine if any other group had experienced
this sort of violence. The university‘s response would be swift and decisive.
But in 2022, Jew-hatred, along with contempt for anyone who is
conservative-leaning, is the only socially acceptable form of intolerance in
liberal circles. Until that changes, UVM and the rest of academia will continue
to be a hostile environment for the People of the Book”.
In addition to what Bobby Miller wrote and opined, you need to know that
he provided a link to another opinion piece written by Jackson Richman and
published two days earlier under the title: “The University of Vermont should
lose federal funding over antisemitism scandal”.