Yale University has come under fire after hosting a virulently anti–Semitic and anti–white speaker on the second night of Passover. The university‘s flagship DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) program, “Belonging at Yale,” invited Houria Bouteldja to speak, even though she has a long history of making inflammatory and incendiary statements, including that Jews “cultivated Nazism“ and are thus responsible for the Holocaust.
The timing of the event was particularly problematic, as it took place on the second night of Passover when Jews were celebrating the second Seder and thus couldn‘t attend to protest.
In addition to her incendiary comments about Jews, Bouteldja has also stated, “Zionists to the Gulag,” “Killing an Israeli is killing two birds with one stone – eliminating the oppressor and oppressed,” and “Mohamed Merah is me and I am him.” Merah is the terrorist who shot up a Jewish school in March 2012 in Toulouse, France, murdering Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and Sandler’s two sons, who were three and six years old, then entered the schoolyard to shoot a seven-year-old girl, Miriam, who was the daughter of the school principal.
The situation was made even worse when a New York–based psychiatrist, Dr. Aruna Khilanani, was invited to speak in April 2021 at a Yale University panel discussion. Khilanani opened her remarks by claiming that she had “fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a f***ing favor.”
Khilanani also charged that white people feel bullied when confronted with the issue of race, adding, “They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath.”
When faced with backlash for her comments, Khilanani refused to apologize, instead telling The New York Times that her statements had been taken out of context to “control the narrative.”
This is just the latest example of Yale University promoting and hosting hateful and divisive rhetoric. It is time for the university to take action and ensure that such rhetoric is not tolerated on its campus. The administration must make it clear that hate speech and anti–Semitism will not be accepted, and it must take steps to ensure that speakers like Bouteldja and Khilanani will not be invited back.
