Emory University put Umaymah Mohammad through ‘one of the most dehumanizing’ experiences of her life as a new front opens in the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices
You are twisting words beyond recognition here, and for what? The guy was an IDF soldier. How is that not “working along IDF soldiers”? It’s not saying “working for the IDF”, which seems to be your criterion.
Next you’re going to complain that it says soldiers, plural, I assume? That would at least be a valid criticism in your quest to… archive what, exactly?
It’s already a stretch to say volunteering medical services for the IDF makes you a soldier, and yes it’s a lie to say she was forced to “work” with soldiers.
But, let’s give you the benefit and say is just semantics and the first part is accurate (it’s not)
The title is STILL blatantly false because the school did NOT suspend her for refusing to work with this professor. The (arguably unjustified) suspension is unrelated.
Your argument is to blatantly lie. The professor of medicine volunteered as a medic in the IDF.
At the same time, Mohammad told her Democracy Now! interviewer: “One of the professors of medicine we have at Emory recently went to serve as a volunteer medic” in the IDF. That professor, she continued, “participated in aiding and abetting a genocide, in aiding and abetting the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza and the murder of over 400 healthcare workers, and is now back at Emory so-called ‘teaching’ medical students and residents how to take care of patients”.
We can read the article. You aren’t fooling anyone.
A medic is a non combatant, but as I mentioned in the post you are replying to, I am willing to concede this professor as an IDF soldier.
I’m glad you can read, so please quote the article the following
these other IDF soldiers that the woman was forced to work with
the details of how the university forced her to work with these soldiers. Was she forces to deploy with them? Did she have to do research with them? Was she threatened somehow?
how she got suspended for refusing the above
Can’t find these points in the article? Funny, me neither.
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi who organized trains to the deaths camps. People with desk jobs are non-combatants but that doesn’t absolve them from actively contributing to a genocide.
these other IDF soldiers that the woman was forced to work with
At least two professors at US universities have faced consequences in recent months after publicly expressing concern about former IDF soldiers on campus. The Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke said she was forced out of the school in January after bringing up the issue of Israeli students “right out of their military service … [who have] been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus”. She had also been speaking on Democracy Now!
Dr Rupa Marya, a professor of medicine and a physician, was banned from campus at the University of California, San Francisco, for posting on X about the presence of former IDF soldiers at medical schools specifically: “Med students at UCSF are concerned that a first year student from Israel is in their class. They’re asking if he participated in the genocide of Palestinians in the IDF before matriculating.”
the details of how the university forced her to work with these soldiers. Was she forces to deploy with them?
No.
Did she have to do research with them?
The school continued to employee the professor to her medical school. Medical students work with professors and other students. Her objection is to be put in a situation where she could have to work with him or anyone else who was part of the IDF to meet requirements to get her degree.
In response to her interview, which was protected speech under school policy, the medical school backed up the professor and not her. So yes, she could end up working with IDF soldiers at her medical school, conducting research even, if she wants to finish her degree.
Mohammad’s remarks on the program drew complaints from the professor – who she did not name – and a dean, who has since left Emory. The professor told the medical school he didn’t feel safe, as Mohammad’s interview could expose him and his family to harassment. He asked medical school administrators to investigate her for violating the school’s code of conduct.
Later that month, the open expression committee released a report of its own: according to its independent investigation, the content of Mohammad’s interview was protected by Emory’s policy on free expression. In fact, the committee said, the school of medicine had violated Emory’s policy on open expression by conducting the investigation in the way it did.
Nemenman wrote in the report that, by ignoring the committee, the school of medicine “violated not just the Policy, but, ironically, also the ‘principles of professionalism and mutual respect’, which they had aimed to enforce with this Conduct Code investigation”.
Was she threatened somehow?
Caught between these two conflicting interpretations, Mohammad faced her hearing on 12 November. The professor and the dean who had accused her, together with a faculty adviser of the professor, “testified for my expulsion”, she said. “They wanted me to never be able to practice medicine … [and] one was spitting across the table, his face red, yelling a lot,” she recalled. They demanded she provide evidence to support her claims about the professor. At one point, the adviser screamed: “Who are you to decide what’s a genocide?”
Mohammad said she felt outmatched and that attempts to argue her case fell on deaf ears. She described the hearing as “one of the most dehumanizing two hours of my life”.
As Mohammad’s PhD adviser, the sociology professor Karida L Brown, was allowed to accompany her in the hearing. Brown, whose research centers on race and racism, echoed Mohammad’s description. It was “like a Jim Crow court”, she said. “It never felt fair, from the beginning,” she said, citing the school of medicine’s refusal to engage the open expression committee or consider its report.
how she got suspended for refusing the above
Seven days after the hearing, Mohammad was informed that she had been suspended from the medical school for one academic year, and would be on probation from the time she returned until she graduated. Her appeal of the suspension was denied.
Your argument started off with an accusation that people didn’t read the article, but it seems that your argument wasn’t informed by a reading of the article.
Look, I’m not trying to attack you despite the fact that you want to keep insulting my reading ability.
I am saying, the title of this article is misleading at best, if not outright lying.
Your own reply is backing me up on this.
these other IDF soldiers that the woman was forced to work with
We are talking about this specific woman at this specific university who was suspended. Your quoted reply talks about other universities. There is no proof in this article that anyone other than the professor worked with the IDF, that she would hypothetically be forced to work with.
the details of how the university forced her to work with these soldiers. Was she forces to deploy with them?
No.
Did she have to do research with them?
The school continued to employee the professor to her medical school. Medical students work with professors and other students. Her objection is to be put in a situation where she could have to work with him or anyone else who was part of the IDF to meet requirements to get her degree.
So in short she was never forced to work with any IDF soldiers. She may at some hypothetical point run into such a situation.
Was she threatened somehow?
You are purposely misreading my question. Was she threatened to work with the IDF soldier or face consequences? She was not.
Was she threatened at some point during the period the article talks about? Probably.
how she got suspended for refusing the above
So no, she was not suspended for refusing to work with an IDF soldier because she never was in that situation.
I want to stop for a second and also point out, I am not attacking or even judging anyone for not reading the article. We can all agree people do not read every link in every thread. This is a very long article to boot.
But for those that do not want to read the entire thing and only looked at the headline, they would assume based on the way the headline is written that the university forced her to work with IDF in some capacity, she refused, and they suspended her. This is how any objective person would interpret the headline.
You can say well technically the professor counts as a soldier, there are soldiers on other campuses, the title didn’t say she got suspended for refusing, only that she got suspended, etc etc… but these are all not how most people would interpret it and you know it.
You are upset about Isreal as many people, including a vocal portion of Lemmy are and that is fine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize poorly written clickbait titles meant to enrage instead of inform. This is The Guardian, a supposedly upstanding news source. What does it say about them or the contents of this story when the first 2 sentences you read are so misleading?
You can say well technically the professor counts as a soldier, there are soldiers on other campuses, the title didn’t say she got suspended for refusing, only that she got suspended, etc etc… but these are all not how most people would interpret it and you know it.
There are probably IDF soldiers at the school besides that one professor. Her objection was not limited to only the one professor, that is the one example she had. She objected to working with IDF soldiers and got suspended because of that objection.
So in short she was never forced to work with any IDF soldiers. She may at some hypothetical point run into such a situation.
She never worked with IDF soldiers, no one is claiming she did. She is objecting to having to work with IDF soldiers.
Read the title again.
A Palestinian American medical student objected to working alongside IDF soldiers. The university suspended her
No one is trying to mislead anyone. Not me, not this article, not the Guardian.
I’ve been trying to point this out subtly, but I think I need to be explicit.
You aren’t understanding the title or the article because you aren’t reading it properly. This has nothing to do with the topics being discussed. This is an issue with reading comprehension. Read the through the whole thing again, from start to finish.
This isn’t a comment on you as a person. You have made a mistake. It is impacting your ability to discuss the topic and the quality of your argument. There’s really no way to proceed in this discussion in good faith until you do.
Sorry if that comes off as harsh, but it’s the truth. Hope that helps.
It seems we can agree that we are both reading the title and interpreting it differently. I don’t think either of us will concede our interpretation at this point, so we can just leave it to others to look at this on their own.
Still, allow me to explain why I find your interpretation to be wrong.
There are probably IDF soldiers at the school besides that one professor. Her objection was not limited to only the one professor, that is the one example she had. She objected to working with IDF soldiers and got suspended because of that objection.
“Probably”. Meaning: you. don’t. know. this.
You have to make up the hypothetical yourself to explain the title, because it’s not there in the article. You’re trying to explain how the title is accurate yet you have to create the story for them. This is not a fantasy novel that’s left to the imagination, it’s a news article.
She never worked with IDF soldiers, no one is claiming she did. She is objecting to having to work with IDF soldiers.
Read the title again.
A Palestinian American medical student objected to working alongside IDF soldiers. The university suspended her
Let’s try an exercise. Pretend there was no article at all and you only have this title. And then you were asked to explain the title based on what you think it means. Here are two of the fairest interpretations I can create.
A Palestinian American was tasked to work with IDF soldiers but refused and was punished for it.
A Palestinian American said she will not work with IDF soldiers and was punished for it.
Your interpretation aligns with #2, correct?
Except #2 is deeply flawed because, again, she was never asked to work with IDF soldiers and she was not punished for objecting to work with IDF soldiers. She was punished for calling out a professor and potentially opening him up for harassment.
Think of it this way. She didn’t say
“I refuse to work with Nazis.”
Instead she said more along the lines of
“There’s a Nazi in our faculty.” And the university was like yea you can’t call our staff Nazis. Now people are going to witch hunt.
Suspended.
The suspension is still dubious, but can you at least see where I’m coming from?
The most generous reading of your interpretation requires accepting another generous interpretation of the reason for suspension (that the official reason for her suspension is not the real one)
It seems we can agree that we are both reading the title and interpreting it differently. I don’t think either of us will concede our interpretation at this point, so we can just leave it to others to look at this on their own.
There is no good faith discussion to be had about the subject matter when you are operating from an alternate reality based on misreading the title and the article. There is no alternate interpretation, you are reading it incorrectly. It does not say what you claim it says.
“Probably”. Meaning: you. don’t. know. this.
You have to make up the hypothetical yourself to explain the title, because it’s not there in the article. You’re trying to explain how the title is accurate yet you have to create the story for them.
No, I pointed out there are probably additional IDF soldiers on that campus. If there are no additional IDF soldiers on that campus, she still objects to working with IDF soldiers plural. You are conflating her one example singular, with a perceived mistake, that is not there, in the title where it is uses a plural.
The use of a plural word is a non-issue. She objects to working with IDF soldiers broadly. Her objection was never intended to be limited to one professor, it was the only example she had. This is not a clever gotcha, you are misreading the title.
This is not a fantasy novel that’s left to the imagination, it’s a news article.
Speaking of fantasy, here’s a fictional example. Where I object to eating rocks. I find one rock in my soup and I refuse to eat it. I say, “There is a rock in my soup!” You go, “Aha! There was only one rock in your soup. So you do not object to eating rocks do you?”. While it’s true I only found one rock, I still objected to eating rocks, plural. My objection is not limited to that one rock in particular.
A Palestinian American was tasked to work with IDF soldiers but refused and was punished for it.
This is not a different interpretation of the title. This is a different title. These words in this alternate title mean something different than what the title says. You have superimposed this onto the article.
Here is an example.
I objected to eating rocks.
I was told to eat rocks and I objected to eating those rocks.
These are not different interpretations of the same sentence. They are two different sentences. In the first I stated an objection without prompting. In the second I was prompted to a task and I objected to it. It is possible to object to an action no one has told a person to do. An objection does not imply a prompt.
she was never asked to work with IDF soldiers
No one is saying that she was. The point is that while attending medical school she could be put in a situation where she could have to work with IDF soldiers.
she was not punished for objecting to work with IDF soldiers.
Her objection was in the Democracy Now! interview. Her objection was working with IDF soldiers. She was punished for giving this objection.
She was punished for calling out a professor and potentially opening him up for harassment.
Mohammad’s remarks on the program drew complaints from the professor – who she did not name – and a dean, who has since left Emory.
She didn’t even name the professor. She was well within her rights as per campus regulations to do this.
Later that month, the open expression committee released a report of its own: according to its independent investigation, the content of Mohammad’s interview was protected by Emory’s policy on free expression. In fact, the committee said, the school of medicine had violated Emory’s policy on open expression by conducting the investigation in the way it did.
But regardless, her objection in that interview, is what got her suspended. She objected to working with that professor because he is an IDF solider. Reframing the objection as a call out, regardless if the objection could potentially lead to harassment or not, does not change that fact it was an objection.
“I refuse to work with Nazis.”
Except she didn’t call the professor something that he is not. She said he volunteered in the IDF as a soldier. No one is claiming that is not the case.
“There’s a Nazi in our faculty.” And the university was like yea you can’t call our staff Nazis. Now people are going to witch hunt. Suspended.
She said a member of the IDF is in our faculty. The faculty said “You can’t say that.”, even though it is true and not being disputed by anyone. The truth could open the professor to harassment. Suspended.
The actual dispute seems to be:
“Who are you to decide what’s a genocide?”
This dispute is what we would be arguing about if we were both reading what the article actually said.
The suspension is still dubious, but can you at least see where I’m coming from?
The suspension is incorrect even by the university’s own standards. Yes, when you read the article you did not comprehend it properly. Reread the article.
The most generous reading of your interpretation requires accepting another generous interpretation of the reason for suspension (that the official reason for her suspension is not the real one)
This is again making a distinction where there is none. The official reason she was suspended is she made an objection in an interview with Democracy Now!. In that interview she objected to working with IDF soldiers. She brought up the professor who served in the IDF to make that objection. Regardless of how the school framed her objection she got suspended because of that objection.
In my example, I objected to eating rocks. What you are saying is, “You didn’t object to eating rocks, you called out a specific rock for being a rock.” In my example, I did call out the rock for being a rock. The statement, “There is a rock in my soup!” is an objection to having to eat rocks.
You are twisting words beyond recognition here, and for what? The guy was an IDF soldier. How is that not “working along IDF soldiers”? It’s not saying “working for the IDF”, which seems to be your criterion.
Next you’re going to complain that it says soldiers, plural, I assume? That would at least be a valid criticism in your quest to… archive what, exactly?
My comment is that the title is blatantly false.
It’s already a stretch to say volunteering medical services for the IDF makes you a soldier, and yes it’s a lie to say she was forced to “work” with soldiers.
But, let’s give you the benefit and say is just semantics and the first part is accurate (it’s not)
The title is STILL blatantly false because the school did NOT suspend her for refusing to work with this professor. The (arguably unjustified) suspension is unrelated.
Your argument is to blatantly lie. The professor of medicine volunteered as a medic in the IDF.
We can read the article. You aren’t fooling anyone.
A medic is a non combatant, but as I mentioned in the post you are replying to, I am willing to concede this professor as an IDF soldier.
I’m glad you can read, so please quote the article the following
Can’t find these points in the article? Funny, me neither.
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi who organized trains to the deaths camps. People with desk jobs are non-combatants but that doesn’t absolve them from actively contributing to a genocide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcdufLc3QSA
No.
The school continued to employee the professor to her medical school. Medical students work with professors and other students. Her objection is to be put in a situation where she could have to work with him or anyone else who was part of the IDF to meet requirements to get her degree.
In response to her interview, which was protected speech under school policy, the medical school backed up the professor and not her. So yes, she could end up working with IDF soldiers at her medical school, conducting research even, if she wants to finish her degree.
Your argument started off with an accusation that people didn’t read the article, but it seems that your argument wasn’t informed by a reading of the article.
Look, I’m not trying to attack you despite the fact that you want to keep insulting my reading ability.
I am saying, the title of this article is misleading at best, if not outright lying.
Your own reply is backing me up on this.
We are talking about this specific woman at this specific university who was suspended. Your quoted reply talks about other universities. There is no proof in this article that anyone other than the professor worked with the IDF, that she would hypothetically be forced to work with.
So in short she was never forced to work with any IDF soldiers. She may at some hypothetical point run into such a situation.
You are purposely misreading my question. Was she threatened to work with the IDF soldier or face consequences? She was not.
Was she threatened at some point during the period the article talks about? Probably.
So no, she was not suspended for refusing to work with an IDF soldier because she never was in that situation.
I want to stop for a second and also point out, I am not attacking or even judging anyone for not reading the article. We can all agree people do not read every link in every thread. This is a very long article to boot.
But for those that do not want to read the entire thing and only looked at the headline, they would assume based on the way the headline is written that the university forced her to work with IDF in some capacity, she refused, and they suspended her. This is how any objective person would interpret the headline.
You can say well technically the professor counts as a soldier, there are soldiers on other campuses, the title didn’t say she got suspended for refusing, only that she got suspended, etc etc… but these are all not how most people would interpret it and you know it.
You are upset about Isreal as many people, including a vocal portion of Lemmy are and that is fine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize poorly written clickbait titles meant to enrage instead of inform. This is The Guardian, a supposedly upstanding news source. What does it say about them or the contents of this story when the first 2 sentences you read are so misleading?
There are probably IDF soldiers at the school besides that one professor. Her objection was not limited to only the one professor, that is the one example she had. She objected to working with IDF soldiers and got suspended because of that objection.
She never worked with IDF soldiers, no one is claiming she did. She is objecting to having to work with IDF soldiers.
Read the title again.
No one is trying to mislead anyone. Not me, not this article, not the Guardian.
I’ve been trying to point this out subtly, but I think I need to be explicit.
You aren’t understanding the title or the article because you aren’t reading it properly. This has nothing to do with the topics being discussed. This is an issue with reading comprehension. Read the through the whole thing again, from start to finish.
This isn’t a comment on you as a person. You have made a mistake. It is impacting your ability to discuss the topic and the quality of your argument. There’s really no way to proceed in this discussion in good faith until you do.
Sorry if that comes off as harsh, but it’s the truth. Hope that helps.
It seems we can agree that we are both reading the title and interpreting it differently. I don’t think either of us will concede our interpretation at this point, so we can just leave it to others to look at this on their own.
Still, allow me to explain why I find your interpretation to be wrong.
“Probably”. Meaning: you. don’t. know. this.
You have to make up the hypothetical yourself to explain the title, because it’s not there in the article. You’re trying to explain how the title is accurate yet you have to create the story for them. This is not a fantasy novel that’s left to the imagination, it’s a news article.
Let’s try an exercise. Pretend there was no article at all and you only have this title. And then you were asked to explain the title based on what you think it means. Here are two of the fairest interpretations I can create.
A Palestinian American was tasked to work with IDF soldiers but refused and was punished for it.
A Palestinian American said she will not work with IDF soldiers and was punished for it.
Your interpretation aligns with #2, correct?
Except #2 is deeply flawed because, again, she was never asked to work with IDF soldiers and she was not punished for objecting to work with IDF soldiers. She was punished for calling out a professor and potentially opening him up for harassment.
Think of it this way. She didn’t say
“I refuse to work with Nazis.”
Instead she said more along the lines of
“There’s a Nazi in our faculty.” And the university was like yea you can’t call our staff Nazis. Now people are going to witch hunt. Suspended.
The suspension is still dubious, but can you at least see where I’m coming from?
The most generous reading of your interpretation requires accepting another generous interpretation of the reason for suspension (that the official reason for her suspension is not the real one)
There is no good faith discussion to be had about the subject matter when you are operating from an alternate reality based on misreading the title and the article. There is no alternate interpretation, you are reading it incorrectly. It does not say what you claim it says.
No, I pointed out there are probably additional IDF soldiers on that campus. If there are no additional IDF soldiers on that campus, she still objects to working with IDF soldiers plural. You are conflating her one example singular, with a perceived mistake, that is not there, in the title where it is uses a plural.
The use of a plural word is a non-issue. She objects to working with IDF soldiers broadly. Her objection was never intended to be limited to one professor, it was the only example she had. This is not a clever gotcha, you are misreading the title.
Speaking of fantasy, here’s a fictional example. Where I object to eating rocks. I find one rock in my soup and I refuse to eat it. I say, “There is a rock in my soup!” You go, “Aha! There was only one rock in your soup. So you do not object to eating rocks do you?”. While it’s true I only found one rock, I still objected to eating rocks, plural. My objection is not limited to that one rock in particular.
This is not a different interpretation of the title. This is a different title. These words in this alternate title mean something different than what the title says. You have superimposed this onto the article.
Here is an example.
I objected to eating rocks.
I was told to eat rocks and I objected to eating those rocks.
These are not different interpretations of the same sentence. They are two different sentences. In the first I stated an objection without prompting. In the second I was prompted to a task and I objected to it. It is possible to object to an action no one has told a person to do. An objection does not imply a prompt.
No one is saying that she was. The point is that while attending medical school she could be put in a situation where she could have to work with IDF soldiers.
Her objection was in the Democracy Now! interview. Her objection was working with IDF soldiers. She was punished for giving this objection.
She didn’t even name the professor. She was well within her rights as per campus regulations to do this.
But regardless, her objection in that interview, is what got her suspended. She objected to working with that professor because he is an IDF solider. Reframing the objection as a call out, regardless if the objection could potentially lead to harassment or not, does not change that fact it was an objection.
Except she didn’t call the professor something that he is not. She said he volunteered in the IDF as a soldier. No one is claiming that is not the case.
She said a member of the IDF is in our faculty. The faculty said “You can’t say that.”, even though it is true and not being disputed by anyone. The truth could open the professor to harassment. Suspended.
The actual dispute seems to be:
This dispute is what we would be arguing about if we were both reading what the article actually said.
The suspension is incorrect even by the university’s own standards. Yes, when you read the article you did not comprehend it properly. Reread the article.
This is again making a distinction where there is none. The official reason she was suspended is she made an objection in an interview with Democracy Now!. In that interview she objected to working with IDF soldiers. She brought up the professor who served in the IDF to make that objection. Regardless of how the school framed her objection she got suspended because of that objection.
In my example, I objected to eating rocks. What you are saying is, “You didn’t object to eating rocks, you called out a specific rock for being a rock.” In my example, I did call out the rock for being a rock. The statement, “There is a rock in my soup!” is an objection to having to eat rocks.