Signatory to UNC’s “Racial Equity Roadmap” Questions Details of Oct. 7 Massacre
“DEI” initiatives are irrational and lack any moral foundation. It’s time to end them.
On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 civilians and videotaped many of their atrocities.
But UNC Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Professor Nadia Yaqub isn’t sure “whether Palestinians or Israelis killed more Israeli civilians that day,” according to Inside Higher Ed.
“What actually happened on that day, and who actually committed what, is still very unclear,” Dr. Yaqub said.
In the same interview, Dr. Yaqub also defended a speaker at a university-sponsored event who described the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust as “a beautiful day.” Dr. Yaqub said of that remark, “I don’t hear anything actually antisemitic.”
A conspiracy theory denying that Jews were murdered by Hamas “is worrisome to Jewish leaders and researchers who see ties to Holocaust denial,” the Washington Post reported last month.
Joel Finkelstein, chief science officer at the Network Contagion Research Institute, told the Post, “There’s a built-in audience that wants to deny that Jews are the victims of atrocity and furthers the notion that Jews are secretly behind everything.”
Dr. Yaqub’s flirtation with Jewish atrocity denialism comes even though Dr. Yaqub herself is a signatory to UNC’s “Faculty Roadmap for Racial Equity.”
The roadmap “invite[s] the University leadership and our faculty colleagues to stand and work with us to make UNC-Chapel Hill a more equitable and inclusive campus, where all can succeed and thrive.” It demands “robust funding and staffing” for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to “ensure racial equity across all schools.”
It’s hard to imagine DEI advocates like Dr. Yaqub abiding the suggestion that, say, George Floyd was responsible for his own death, or suggests any minority group (other than Jews) is responsible for violent hate crimes against themselves. Loud calls for “change,” denunciations of systemic racism, and intensive DEI training would likely follow such an ordeal.
Yet here we are. The signatory to a DEI report at UNC is publicly suggesting Israeli Jews killed their own on October 7, and she doesn’t see any whiff of antisemitism from those who call the massacre “a beautiful day.” Indeed, Dr. Yaqub helped lead the charge to defeat a UNC Faculty Council resolution condemning that statement.
Such is the absurdity and hypocrisy of the DEI movement. At best, the campus DEI regime has no moral center of gravity.
At worst, the DEI regime picks and chooses which groups qualify for defending (e.g., black and indigenous populations) and which don’t (Jews).
Either case is grounds for disbanding the entire exercise. A movement that bills itself as pursuing inclusivity, but that instead applies its purported principles only to select groups, has no moral authority. It divides more than it “includes.”
Dr. Yaqub is well within her rights to question whether Jews were responsible for their own deaths on October 7, as abominable as that idea may be. We’re not suggesting Dr. Yaqub should face some sort of formal disciplinary action for trafficking in such denialism, nor are we suggesting administrators bear any responsibility for the professor’s comments to a reporter.
But this episode is indicative of how hypocritical the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement really is. It’s high time to end it.
