Wellesley College anti-Semitism
Liz Clark
5W
1. What is the editorial's central claim?
The central claim made in this article by Lawrence Harmon is that discrimination around the world such as anti-Semitism and racial inequalities are still very present in everyday life.
2. What is a significant piece of evidence used to support the argument?
Back in 1983, Harmon while writing for the Jewish Advocate weekly newspaper received copies of correspondence between the Wellesley president, Ruth Adams, and the religion professor at the time, Roger Johnson. In these letters, there were debates over the appointment of a Jewish chaplain. Harmon claims that these letters showed primary points of anti-Semitic view points. Specific evidence of anti-Semitisim in the past of Wellesley college includes the facts that during the 1930s and ’40s, Wellesley College managed its discomfort with Jews by limiting their enrollment to about 10 percent. Even decades later, Jewish professors were deemed incapable of teaching courses on the New Testament. It wasn’t until 1981 that a Jewish professor was hired in the religion department. Later on in the 1990s Tony Martin, an extremely anti-Semitic professor of Africana studies, wrote his own book called “The Jewish Onslaught”. Wellesley college were afraid from this to confront the issue with anti-Semitism that was so prevalent in the history of the college.
3. What is your opinion of the claim? Add your voice.
Overall, my opinion on the matter is that anti-Semitism is a very critical offense especially when there are Jewish people attending the school. This topic is very important to present day time because there has recently been many acts of discrimination such as police attacks seen to be as racial attacks. This article is meant to focus on anti-Semitism, but to me it also is clearly stirring up more about discrimination and racial inequalities than just anti-Semitism.
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