Silence From the University of Oregon on Alleged Discrimination

Last spring, I wrote about a serious allegation of discrimination at the University of Oregon Law School. Here is an update from Professor Ofer Raban:

In February this year the University of Oregon received a complaint charging unlawful discrimination at the University Oregon Law Review. The Review rejected an article by an Israeli professor—who also teaches in the U.S.—because she is a faculty member at Tel Aviv University. The editors’ sense of impunity was such that the discriminatory decision was put in writing. When another editor raised the alarm about the legality of the action, a high-ranking member of the law school administration was consulted and then approved the discrimination. Today, six months after the University received the complaint about this discrimination—which allegedly violated a slew of laws and regulations—no known adverse action has been taken against anyone involved, and the high-ranking official is still holding her prominent position at the law school.

Moreover, in response to my most recent inquiry, the University’s Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance informed me that the results of the investigation will be kept secret because “The outcome of the process implicates confidential employee information that we are typically prohibited from sharing.”

Is that so? In 2016, when the University of Oregon opened an investigation into a blackface episode involving a law school professor (who in fact ineptly advocated for racial equality), the University released the full report of its investigations, issued public condemnations, and publicized its punitive actions against the professor—all while explaining that academic tenure protections prevented her firing.

In sharp contrast, the University of Oregon is presently engaged in a pattern of stonewalling and refusals to address complaints of unlawful anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli harassment and discrimination on campus. This may be unsurprising, given that University of Oregon officials are often themselves the perpetrators of such acts.

Maybe silence is all we’ll get on this one, unless it goes to court.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.

The post Silence From the University of Oregon on Alleged Discrimination first appeared on Oregon Catalyst.