Yale University has now canceled the Yale Initiative for the Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the only such program in the country. The New York Post reports that the reason for the program's termination was not lack of interest, but, likely, the program's insistence on covering all forms of anti-Semitism—Muslim anti-Semitism included. The report states that Yale's president Richard Levin had been pressured to drop YIISA by, among others, PLO "ambassador" Maen Rashid Areikat. The Post quotes a letter Areikat wrote to Levin, urging Yale’s chief to “publicly dissociate [him]self and Yale University from the anti-Arab extremism and hate-mongering.”
When asked for comment, university press secretary Tom Conroy seemed to dent the Post’s account and said that a faculty review committee recommended the program’s cancellation. The decision, Conroy said, was in no way influenced by external political pressure. “The Yale provost has told faculty that he is ready to provide support for working groups or other proposals for studying anti-semitism,” Conroy said.
Yale has refused to release the review committee's report.
Donald Green, the A. Whitney Griswold professor of political science and director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, said YIISA failed to produce enough scholarly material or teach as many students as other more successful and apparently more important programs—such as the one in agrarian studies.
