JNS
“Shouting down a speaker whom one does not agree with is never acceptable and stands outside of our shared community values,” the president of the college stated.
Haverford College in the Philadelphia-area suburbs has permanently banned an individual who disrupted a campus talk on Feb. 1 featuring Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur, the college announced following an investigation by Campus Safety.
Video of the incident circulating on social media shows an anti-Israel protester draped in a keffiyeh using a bullhorn to shout over Rettig Gur during the event. The protester yelled about “children slaughtered by the IOF,” an acronym used by critics to refer to the Israel Defense Forces, and warned the audience, “When Gaza is burned, you will all burn too.”
After the protester was escorted from the room, Rettig Gur told the audience, “It crossed our field of experience and evaporated. And do you know what it was? The howling cry of a lonely, uneducated human.”
In a Feb. 4 letter to the campus community, Campus Safety Director Jerry Fayette stated that the college launched an investigation after witnesses observed “clear violations of Haverford’s Policy on Expressive Freedom and Responsibility.” The letter was provided to JNS by the college.
Fayette said the investigation identified “both the individual who used the bullhorn and an audience member who initiated physical contact” with that person. Neither individual is a student or a member of the Haverford College community, he said.
“As we conclude our investigation, the persons in question will be considered persona non grata, which bans them from our campus indefinitely,” Fayette wrote. “If they are found to be on Haverford’s campus, their presence will be considered trespassing, and the college will contact local police.”
Wendy Raymond, president of the college, addressed the incident in a separate message earlier in the week, noting that local law enforcement was “called to provide support but was not involved.”
“Shouting down a speaker whom one does not agree with is never acceptable and stands outside of our shared community values,” she stated.
