KANSAS CITY, Mo. ― The University of Missouri downplayed incidents of anti-Semitism while publicly condemning bigotry against racial minorities during protests last year, a Jewish human rights group told the university system’s top administrator.
In a letter this week to interim system president Mike Middleton, officials with the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the university vocally decried incidents targeting minority students, but those targeting Jewish students got little mention.
The university drew national attention in November after students protested what they saw as administrators’ indifference to systemic racism on campus. That turmoil culminated in the resignation of the system president and the chancellor of the Columbia campus.
“The perception now is that Mizzou is missing in action when it comes to defending the rights of the Jewish campus community,” Rabbi Meyer May, the center’s executive director, and Aron Hier, its campus outreach chief, wrote to Middleton.
Middleton said Thursday that the university takes anti-Semitism “extremely seriously.”
“And while we certainly embrace our cherished freedom of speech, we are absolutely committed to learning environments that are free of hatred and intolerance,” he told The Associated Press by email.
The center’s letter comes two months after administrators condemned the latest of four cases of anti-Semitic graffiti in Columbia dormitories in less than a year.
