You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Wake Forest University has canceled an Oct. 7 lecture by Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor and founding director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program at San Francisco State University, according to WFDD, the public radio station in Winston-Salem, N.C. Abdulhadi’s scheduled talk was entitled, “One Year Since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance.”
University officials announced their decision in a message to campus on Thursday, days after Jewish students created a petition calling for the event to be canceled. The petition referred to Abdulhadi as “a self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer” and said her presence on campus would “[foster] a hostile environment and [detract] from the importance of allowing students to feel safe while mourning the anniversary of these atrocious attacks.” The petition received upward of 8,500 signatures.
In the announcement, university president Susan Wente and provost Michele Gillespie said they want to avoid hosting events on Oct. 7 that are “inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community.”
