North Carolina State University. Photo: Wiki Commons.

Twenty professors currently working at public universities in North Carolina have pledged to promote the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel “in the classroom and on campus.”

The pledge characterized Israel as a “settler colonial state.”

All 20 are employed by the University of North Carolina (UNC) System, which is required by State law and the UNC equality policy to be institutionally neutral “on the political controversies of the day.” All 20 signed the BDS pledge using their UNC System credentials.

As reported last week, one of these professors, Kristen Alff, is currently teaching the “History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” at NC State University (NCSU).

Alff is the only professor currently teaching at NCSU who signed the BDS pledge. Nevertheless, she was chosen to teach the course on Israel, which suggests to the community that the university has an anti-Israel agenda.

Dr. Stanley Robboy, Professor Emeritus of Pathology at Duke University, wrote to UNC System President Peter Hans and other officials about Alff’s course: “Is it not curious that NC State has chosen the one historian among its ranks who openly calls Israel a colonial settler state and publicly supports the BDS movement to teach its course on Israel?”

A local professional wrote to university officials, “As a recipient of federal funding, the university [NCSU] is subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which obligates institutions to address conduct that may create a hostile environment for Jewish students, including antisemitism related to shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”

A parent of two NCSU graduates wrote to Dean Deanna Dannels: “University leadership needs to step up and stop this biased teaching against Israel … This is teaching Jew Hatred.”

The UNC System appears dismissive of such concerns. The Vice President for Communications told me: “Faculty have wide latitude in how they teach about controversial issues. Expectations of neutrality do not apply to individual scholars in the same way that they do to institutional leaders.”

I contacted most of the 20 professors who signed the pledge. One wrote back that he doesn’t “advocate” for any political cause in the classroom, but refused to remove himself from the list. Besides one other vague response I got, the rest of the professors refused to comment.

Due to space constraints, I will highlight just two more of the 20 UNC System professors who pledged to advance BDS “in the classroom and on campus.”

In 2023, I attended an infamous UNC event, in which one of the invited speakers called Oct. 7 a “beautiful day” and spoke with pride and admiration for Hamas.

Sara Smith, who signed the BDS pledge using her UNC-Chapel Hill credentials, served as moderator and host of the event.

From what I observed, it didn’t appear to me that one person in the room — including Smith — appeared troubled by the enthusiastic endorsement of Hamas.

Several panelists openly agreed with the vile, pro Hamas comments. At no point did Smith or any other UNC faculty member or participant challenge this public support of Hamas or say to the students in attendance, “There was nothing beautiful about Hamas’ murder and rapes that day.” Audience questions were not permitted, which meant that the pro-Hamas comments went completely unchallenged.

Within a week of my event report, UNC-Chapel Hill’s provost at the time wrote a blistering letter of concern to faculty and officials, saying, “One thing is clear: from the outside, the academy appears to be fostering a banal kind of evil.”

UNC apologized repeatedly for this event.

Nadia Yaqub also signed the BDS pledge using her UNC-Chapel Hill credentials. In 2024, I attended a UNC event that Yaqub moderated and hosted. From what I observed, it seemed she was in charge.

As I reported at the time, all five panelists were anti-Israel radicals. Four panelists had signed the BDS pledge and the fifth had signed an anti-Israel statement. Students and the community were provided a one-sided demonization of Israel that ignored the legal requirement of institutional neutrality without including a single pro-Israel or even neutral voice to challenge the biased panel and the two hours of Israel-bashing speeches.

About 55 seconds into her opening remarks, Yaqub told the audience that Israel is fighting “Palestinian resistance groups.” Not a single panelist spoke up to disagree, and to let the audience know that the United States and many other countries had designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.

That same year, Yaqub spoke at a UNC Faculty Council meeting to oppose a resolution titled “Condemning Antisemitism on Campus.”

Yaqub and Smith were each contacted for this column and did not respond.

The UNC System and the North Carolina legislature must initiate comprehensive investigations to ascertain whether any professors are fulfilling their pledges to utilize taxpayer-funded public classrooms and campuses for the purpose of boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning Israel. The US Department of Education also needs to launch an investigation to determine if Jewish and pro-Israel students and scholars are being discriminated against in North Carolina public universities.

Peter Reitzes writes about antisemitism in North Carolina and beyond.