CV NEWS FEED // A well-known Jewish scholar published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining how hostility to her identity and “woke” culture at Clark University led her to join a Catholic Institution.
In her op-ed titled Why I’m Leaving Clark University, Professor Mary Jane Rein, until recently the president of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University for 20 years, wrote: “I observed this firsthand on March 13, when an unruly and hate-filled audience shut down a lecture I helped organize at Worcester State University.”
During the conference, Rein was attacked by a trio of Clark University Ph.D. students who shouted during her remarks and then demanded her to resign from her position because the conference included a former Israeli military officer scheduled to speak about the security situation in Israel.
“When the director of the Jewish Federation called me to the podium to introduce the speaker, one of them shouted at him not to use my title, as my views didn’t represent the Strassler Center. I had yet to express any views,” Rein wrote.
“[I]n an email the next day, a senior administrator admonished me against using my university affiliation in connection with non-Clark events, saying it was ‘highly problematic,’” she continued:
I hadn’t mentioned my title, either in my brief remarks or in the event announcement, but the administrator warned me to ensure that others also refrain from connecting me to Clark—something that had never been an issue over the previous two decades.
Clark’s management responded that “faculty who draw on their research and expertise, he said, can speak freely, while I alone, as an ‘administrator in an executive position like yours running a center,’ would create ‘confusion’ if my affiliation was noted.”
“I suspected I was being asked to censor myself on the basis of my Jewish identity and support for Israel, as I inferred there would be professional consequences if I presented that disfavored view,” she wrote.
Rein explained, “I had many satisfying years at Clark advancing scholarship on the Holocaust and other genocides,” but continued, “there is no joy in working on behalf of those students who would, with the support of university leadership, try to silence me in public rather than engage with me civilly. I can’t invest my time and efforts to advance an institution that lacks the strength of character to protect diverse points of view.”
“I will be joining Assumption University, where I will help launch the new Center for Civic Friendship,” Rein wrote. “To my surprise as both a scholar and a Jew, I feel a warmer welcome and more commonality of purpose at a Catholic institution than at Clark, a secular one.”
“I find common cause with Assumption and have chosen to align myself with its mission to pursue truth in the company of friends,” she concluded. “Its commitment to a style of learning that acknowledges and respects different opinions gives me hope that universities can lead us toward a better future.”
Assumption University presents itself as “a Catholic university founded by the Augustinians of the Assumption, located in the heart of New England in Worcester, Massachusetts. Assumption University strives to form graduates known for their critical intelligence, thoughtful citizenship, and compassionate service.”
