University accused of ‘colluding’ with pro-Israel group

An Arab professor and lecturer in diversity has accused George Washington University in the United States of ‘colluding’ with a right-wing pro-Israel group over a federal complaint accusing her of antisemitism, writes Chris McGreal for The Guardian.

The group, StandWithUs (SWU), filed a complaint with the US Education Department’s civil rights office claiming that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, discriminated against Jewish students by refusing to accept their definitions of antisemitism. The complaint, filed last month, also accused Sheehi of hate speech about Israel and Zionism, and alleged that the university failed to properly investigate a history of complaints against the professor.

Sheehi, who was born in Lebanon, said she has been targeted by SWU for her activism on behalf of Palestinians outside of the classroom, in an attempt to silence and intimidate academic opponents of Israeli policies by conflating criticism with antisemitism. “One only need look at its stated mission to see that it is a shameless fringe political activist group prosecuting a right-wing pro-Israel agenda,” she wrote in a lengthy defence in Counterpunch.
Full report on The Guardian site