In May 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine poured red paint which resembles spilled blood on the steps of the South Building, an office for administrative staff and the chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo: UNCSJP/Screenshot

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has formed a new unit focused on the Middle East, to be led by a professor who has pledged to advocate for a boycott of Israel “in the classroom and on campus.”

History professor Cemil Aydin “will serve as the inaugural Faculty Director” of INSITE-Middle East, an “interdisciplinary hub” aimed at fostering “global expertise in six world regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East.”

Aydin was awarded this leadership position despite having signed Palestine and Praxis: Open Letter and Call to Action — using his UNC credentials — which affirmed:

In the classroom and on campus, we commit to pressuring our academic institutions and organizations to respect the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions [BDS] of Israel by instating measures that remove complicity and partnership with military, academic, and legal institutions involved in entrenching Israel’s policies.

About 20 professors from the UNC System have pledged to promote this BDS pledge.

Aydin also signed a letter urging colleagues in Middle East Studies “to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”

He retweeted, “When I teach about apartheid in South Africa, I always have students who say, ‘I can’t believe the US supported the apartheid regime for so long.’ May I have future students who say the same about Israel-Palestine.”

In January, I contacted Aydin, asking, “Do you use your classroom at a North Carolina public university to advocate for BDS?” He did not respond and his name continues to appear as a signatory.

Last week, I contacted Dean Jim White and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Magnus Egerstedt for comment, asking how Aydin was chosen for this new leadership role and if they were aware he signed the BDS pledge. They did not respond.

Year after year, UNC selects radically anti-Israel professors to “educate” students about Israel and the Middle East, exemplifying a pattern in their hiring and promotion practices.

Here are just a few examples:

In 2026, Kristen Alff taught the “History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” at North Carolina State University. She had signed the BDS pledge. When I contacted Alff on this matter, she denied advocating for BDS on campus, yet her name continues to appear on the BDS pledge.

In 2021, I reported that the “The Conflict over Israel/Palestine” course at UNC-Chapel Hill was taught by PhD student Kylie Broderick, who had publicly advocated against Israel’s existence and had signed the BDS pledge. Upon the course’s conclusion, she said, “The concept of objectivity is a colonizers’ tool and one we must discard entirely.” Broderick would later tweet, “F—k Israel.”

Cemil Aydin was Broderick’s advisor.

In 2023, an entire department at UNC-Chapel Hill expressed “solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli settler colonialism.”

More than 200 UNC System “faculty” have signed a “Statement on Palestine from North Carolina Academics,” which states, “We acknowledge our complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians” and “[We] reject the prevalent ‘two-sides’ narrative.”

UNC is a taxpayer funded public university system that is required by State law to be institutionally neutral “on the political controversies of the day.” Instead, UNC has taught generations of students to hate Israel.

UNC hosts “academic” events that demonize Israel while excluding pro-Israel and neutral perspectives.

I have written about those experiences for The Algemeiner before, including a webinar where a map of the Middle East and Africa erased Israel and replaced it with “Palestinian Occupied Territories,” and an infamous anti-Israel panel at UNC-Chapel Hill in which one of the panelists said that, “Oct. 7 for many of us from the region was a beautiful day.” No panelist disagreed with her, and two even agreed openly.

Two years ago, I attended a panel hosted at UNC-Chapel Hill which consisted of anti-Israel professors, four of whom had signed the BDS pledge. At the beginning of the event, one professor 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 have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. The event was sponsored by five UNC departments and institutes.

It is imperative that the North Carolina legislature and Federal authorities insist that UNC adhere to the legal obligation of institutional neutrality. This will necessitate the dismissal of administrators, department heads, and professors as they appear either unwilling or incapable of upholding the legal mandate of institutional neutrality.

Peter Reitzes writes about antisemitism in North Carolina and beyond.