Dear Chancellor Gabel:

The University of Pittsburgh’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is deeply alarmed by the recently released “Report of the Working Group on Antisemitism” (“Report”) and the accompanying Office of the Chancellor’s “University Response to the Working Group on Antisemitism’s Report and Recommendations” (“Response”). We are concerned about the process through which the report and the response were generated, about their implications for academic freedom, and about the proposed path forward. The process clearly ignored established norms of shared governance and denied opportunities for broad community input. The recommendations of the Report and the Response pose grave threats to academic freedom; moreover, those recommendations are both practically unworkable and legally dubious.

I. Process

The Working Group on Antisemitism was formed in December 2024. This followed a November 2024 proposal for the creation of a similar group through the University Senate that generated considerable pushback: several members of the Faculty Assembly suggested that these concerns should be handled through the Senate’s established Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy committee (EIDAC). At the December meeting, attendees were told that the question of forum was moot and that a Working Group would be formed outside of Senate procedures and without Senate input, under the auspices of the Chancellor’s office.

This opaque and unaccountable process violates long-established norms of shared governance cherished at Pitt and upheld by the AAUP. Creating a committee comparable to EIDAC but focused solely on the concerns of a single group—a committee that offered privileged status to a private community organization while excluding many campus stakeholders—elevates the speech and concerns of some faculty and students while ignoring others and excluding other under-represented and targeted groups. This process appears to violate equal protection norms and amplifies the antisemitic trope that Jews deserve and receive special treatment.  

A democratic society and functioning institution must balance the needs of faculty and students of all identities and viewpoints, not structurally privilege some over others; specifically, the Report and Response ignore the rampant anti-Muslim rhetoric and practices polluting our campus and our community. There was no opportunity for faculty, students, or staff with differing views, either as individuals or through established organizations, to offer contrasting viewpoints, express their own concerns, or otherwise participate. Instead, those with differing opinions are implicitly threatened with punishment.

We also note with alarm the selective—and highly politically biased—proposed involvement of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh (JFGP)[1] in proposing, monitoring, reviewing, and enforcing Pitt policies, and the exclusion of other Jewish groups including Ratzon, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Jewish Bund. This is unfortunately consistent with the Report’s and the Response’s identification of “Jewish” concerns with those of some Jewish groups and individuals who tolerate no criticism of Israel or its actions. Indeed, we are disturbed by your consistent and repeated homogenization of “Jewish” views, concerns, and opinions throughout your Response. This is both a blatant example of viewpoint discrimination by the University and a violation of norms of university self-governance.

We note that your Response calls for discussion through shared government mechanisms, but this is too little, too late, an attempt to provide a veneer of legitimacy to a flawed process. The Report and Response have been published, and any opposition will be easy to portray as obstructionist or worse. Meaningful participation and disagreement have, at this point, been structurally precluded.

II. Academic Freedom

Although we dispute many of the assertions in the Report and Response and question their glaring omissions, we focus here on their implications for academic freedom. While the Response avoids endorsing any specific definition of antisemitism, the Report does not. It strongly intimates that anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli views are antisemitic (ironically perpetuating the antisemitic trope that all Jews are responsible for the actions of the state of Israel).[2] Given that your Response applauds and largely endorses the Report and offers no definition of antisemitism of its own, members of the University community can only conclude that you share the Report’s understanding of antisemitism; you certainly do not dispute it. Our concern is that this kind of ambiguity has—and we suspect is intended to have—a chilling effect. Creating a climate of fear and uncertainty where punishment is promised for the violation of norms and definitions that remain undefined will exacerbate the self-censorship that is already widespread on campus. This does a tremendous disservice to our students, who are frustrated at the repressive climate that already exists on campus.[3] It is also, plainly, a violation of academic freedom.

We are not reassured by references to dialogue and civil engagement. “Civility” and associated notions like “respect” have a long history as tools for repressing the views and concerns of minoritized populations. We also worry that dialogue and civil engagement initiatives often effectively teach our students that the only safe course of action is to avoid controversial topics, lest they be accused of incivility or disrespect for expressing views to which some people vehemently object. In this connection, we note with trepidation the idea that merely “being confronted with protest activity” that expresses views with which some people disagree was named in the Report as part of the “background” climate of antisemitism on campus. Both academic freedom and free expression rights protect faculty, staff, and students in their pursuit and discussion of ideas that some would prefer to suppress or ignore.

The Report and Response frequently invoke time, place, and manner restrictions on speech while failing to specify their boundaries for faculty, staff, and students. Such restrictions have been repeatedly used, at Pitt and elsewhere, to selectively repress disfavored speech through a climate of racial and colonial intimidation. Time, place, and manner requirements under the First Amendment cannot and should not be used to engage in viewpoint discrimination or to make it impossible for any group to express its views. While the Response acknowledges that these restrictions must be clearly defined, we object to their historical, repeated, and continuing use as tools of censorship.

Finally, we are aghast that the Response asserts that “the University understands that perceptions of safety are as important as safety measures themselves.” This position is wholly inconsistent with academic freedom and would make much teaching (and potentially research) nearly impossible. It can also easily be weaponized to attack racially, sexually, religiously, and politically vulnerable people—students, staff, and faculty alike—on the grounds that their very existence is frightening to those around them (imagine white nationalist groups claiming that they are “threatened” with replacement by the presence of racially minoritized people). If followed to its logical conclusion, this understanding would require that the University be closed.

III. Future Action

We agree with much of what the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and an autonomous group of Jewish faculty have called for in their replies to the Report and Response. We believe that to have any legitimacy or viability, this process must start again from the beginning. Specifically, we call for:

1. Withdrawal of the Report and Response as inconsistent with established norms and practices of shared governance. In the absence of such withdrawal, we urge the University Senate not to participate in the laundering of the Report and Response through sham processes of “consultation.”
2. Explicit repudiation of proposed “public safety” collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.
3. An in-person, transparent discussion of the entire process to this point, including the selection of Working Group members and information about resignations from the Working Group.
4. A good faith and genuinely collaborative process to create an inclusive mechanism to address these issues and the harm done by the Report and the Response.
5. Recognition of the expertise of the AAUP on the use of time, place, and manner restrictions on speech and collaboration with the AAUP and relevant shared governance committees on any discussions of such restrictions. 
6. Full recognition and respect for faculty rights to engage in teaching and scholarship on the subjects of their expertise—including human rights, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, world history, world politics, and all other topics—and full affirmation of the right of Pitt community members to express their views, including views critical of Israel, Zionism, and Islamophobia, consistent with nationally recognized AAUP parameters and the law.

Professor Michael Goodhart (Political Science), President

Professor Ruth Mostern (History), Vice President

Professor Harry Hochheiser (Biomedical Informatics), Secretary-Treasurer

Professor Anjali Vats (Law), Member at Large of the Executive Committee

[1] We note that JFGP is highly controversial; it routinely denounces local elected officials and sues political opponents in attempting to protect and advance its own extremist positions. Its formalized role in University governance and policy-making is both a shocking instance of viewpoint discrimination and in potential violation of the University’s 501(c)3 status. Moreover, the collaboration between Pitt and JFGP is an ironic reversal from Pitt’s past criticism of student protests as illegitimate because they involved “outsiders.”

[2] E.g., p.1, paragraph 3 (“Background”) and p. 4, section 3, paragraph 2 (“Training, Education, and Contextual Understanding”).

[3] Pitt has “earned” an F grade and a rank of 219 out of 257 schools in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression College Free Speech Rankings and a Hostile Campus designation from the Council on America-Islamic Relations. It was also successfully sued by the ACLU over its treatment of Students for Justice in Palestine.