“‘Refusing to participate on a panel with a Zionist is a bare-assed excuse for antisemitism.’ For state funded-colleges, it also might be illegal”

FREE PRESS
University Cancels Panel Because Author Is a ‘Zionist’
Joe Nocera
September 23, 2024

For the last seven years, the New York State Writers Institute has held an annual book festival at the University at Albany. It’s where notable authors come together and discuss big ideas like climate change, feminism, and immigration. But this year, the festival, which was held on Saturday, was disrupted because two authors refused to discuss their books with the panel’s moderator. Why? Because she is a “Zionist.” The Zionist in question was Elisa Albert, a 46-year-old progressive feminist author whose novels—she’s written three of them—are dark comedies about subjects like modern motherhood and fame. She had agreed to moderate the panel months earlier, and she was looking forward to it. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Bill would bar colleges from accepting money, gifts from terror-supporting countries Colleges and universities would be barred from accepting financial support or gifts from foreign nations that support terrorism under bipartisan legislation introduced by two New York House members, who said taking such funds is “an act of national self-sabotage.” The ban proposed by Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) and Andrew Garbarino (R-LI) would cover China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and other countries that support terrorism…“Foreign influence has no place in our education system — especially when it’s aimed at spreading antisemitism and anti-American sentiment on our college campuses,” Garbarino said. “For far too long, radical organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine have been propped up by foreign entities with connections to terrorism,” he continued.