Pro-Hamas protesters during  Yale University’s commencement ceremony, in New Haven, Connecticut, US, May 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin

A cohort of Jewish civil rights and nonprofit groups issued on Thursday a joint letter expressing concerns about the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) holding a webinar which promoted false claims about Israel’s conduct in the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Titled “Scholasticide in Palestine,” the virtual event held on Thursday accused Israel of “scholasticide” and “exterminationist” tactics of war. Such accusations cite damages sustained by education institutions and loss of life in Gaza, but rather than describing those misfortunes as inevitable consequences of a protracted war that Hamas started by launching a surprise massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, those leading the AAUP event argued that Israel’s aim was to murder educators and erase Palestinian history and culture.

Thursday’s letter — signed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Academic Engagement Network (AEN), American Jewish Committee (AJC), Hillel International, and the Jewish Federations of North America — said that presenting such a biased portrayal of Israel without allowing for an opposing viewpoint was destructive and undermining of the AAUP’s mission to promote scholarship which fosters enlightenment and truth.

“While we fully support academic freedom, open inquiry, and the right to discuss a range of complex geopolitical issues, we are troubled by the framing of and publicity surrounding this event, which promotes a one sided narrative demonizing Israel, and perpetuates falsehoods that have no place within a scholarly association,” the letter said, noting that “there is no evidence of any intent by Israel to ‘systematically destroy’ the education system in Gaza or elsewhere.”

After proceeding to criticize the event for not including a discussion of the deadly Oct. 7 massacre which precipitated the war, the letter went on to argue that it alienated Jewish AAUP members and ultimately damaged the organization’s stature.

“The credibility and reputation of an academic association are built on its ability to support nuanced, principled, and evidence-based discourse,” the letter continued. “The endorsement of highly contested terms like ‘scholasticide’ can erode this credibility, as it suggests a departure from the association’s responsibility to uphold rigorous academic standards. Such framing not only risks alienating members of the academic community but also diminishes the organization’s standing as a reliable and trustworthy source of scholarly dialogue.”

The AAUP has not responded to The Algemeiner’s request for comment for this story.

The “Scholasticide in Palestine” event is not the first time the AAUP has promoted anti-Israel bias.

In August 2024, it issued a statement in support of academic boycotts, a seismic decision which reversed decades of policy and cleared the way for scholar activists to escalate their efforts to purge the university of Zionism and educational partnerships with Israel.

Coming amid a bitter debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on college campuses and Israel’s war to eradicate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, the statement did not mention the Jewish state specifically, but its countenancing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement was made clear, according to Jewish and pro-Israel leaders, by a section of the statement which said that boycotts “can legitimately seek to protect and advance the academic freedom and fundamental rights of colleagues and students who are living and working under circumstances that violate that freedom and one or more of those rights.”

Founded in 1915 by John Dewey and Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, the AAUP has over 370,000 members from higher education institutions across the US. Once regarded as a guardrail preventing the politicization of higher education, it has in recent years been disparaged — by nonprofits such as the National Association of Scholars (NAS), for example — for allegedly becoming a partisan advocacy group for the far left.

Following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, two and a half weeks passed before the AAUP commented on the ensuing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and when it did, the group said nothing about the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities, instead discussing the importance of academic freedom. At the time, dozens of professors were denounced for cheering Hamas’s violence and encouraging extreme anti-Zionist demonstrations in which masses of students and faculty called for the elimination of the Jewish state “from the river to the sea,” which is widely considered a call for genocide.

The organization’s behavior is troubling, ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in statement shared with The Algemeiner on Friday.

“We are very concerned that AAUP, whose stated mission includes representing all academics and ensuring ‘higher education’s contribution to the common good’ continues to act in ways that demonize Israel, marginalize Jewish and Israeli members, and promote policies and events that portray a one-sided, politicized view of complex issues.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.