Professors Spin Anti-Semitic Conspiracies at Cal State-Fresno

Vida Samiian

When CSU Fresno canceled a search last year for an Edward Said professorship on procedural grounds, it didn’t take long for anti-Israel profs. like Vida Samiian to conjure up an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory accusing Jewish faculty and outside groups of interfering due to “racism” against the Middle Eastern applicants. Pretty soon, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) were registering their own complaints. Campus Watch West coast representative Cinnamon Stillwell and CW Fellow Michael Lumish cover the ugly affair at the Algemeiner:

California State University, Fresno (CSUF) is the last place that one would expect conspiracy theories about Jewish power to proliferate — because Jews make up less than one percent of Fresno’s population. But leave it to the academic world to provide fertile ground for this ugly trope.

It began last year, when CSUF sought to hire someone for an endowed professorship to be named after the late Columbia University professor Edward Said. When the hiring committee failed to appoint one of the final four applicants — all of Middle Eastern heritage — and CSUF canceled the search, an acrimonious battle ensued.

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California State University, Fresno

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.