for
the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts
Nov.
10, 2000
|
Anti-Semitic writings sent to faculty by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff  aculty
in at least 10 departments recently received a pair of mailings they
characterize as anti-Semitic. The mailings, from anonymous sources,
appeared in faculty mailboxes about a week apart in late October."It's clearly a white supremacist polemic," said Anne Herrington, chair of the English Department. "It seems aimed to stir up other likely anti-Semites." "It's so dumb, the idea that they're going to affect professors' viewpoints by sending this out," said Randall Stokes, chair of Sociology. One mailing is an open letter to Boston University chancellor John Silber supporting "revisionist" theories of the "alleged" Holocaust. The other document, "Anti-Semitism, Found," is an essay formatted like a journal article. Members of the Germanic Languages and Literatures Department received a similarly formatted German-language document instead, entitled "Die judische Frage im 20. Jahrhundert in Amerika" (The Jewish Question in 20th Century America). The German document claims that it is being sent to 40,000 people. "I think virtually every member of our faculty has gotten them," said Anthropology Department chairperson Ralph Faulkingham. The Philosophy Department received at least three, according to head John Robison, and Herrington reported at least 11 faculty in English had received them. Faculty in Economics, History, Journalism, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology also received the mailings, as did Humanities and Fine Arts dean Lee Edwards and Isenberg School of Management dean Tom O'Brien. "UMass Police are doing a follow-up," said Chief of Police Jack Luippold, "and individuals who receive these should be contacting us." Germanic Languages and Literatures professor Sara Lennox characterized the contents as "ominous, but vague" and said colleagues at Boston University and Boston College had also received the mailings. Lennox and Grant Ingle, director of the Office of Human Relations, said they are looking into bringing a speaker to campus to discuss hate mail. |
