Wealthy Jewish regent at University of Michigan gets woman fired for allegedly saying wealthy Jews at the University of Michigan control the place

It’s funny because it’s true:

The administrator, Rachel Dawson, was director of the university’s office of academic multicultural initiatives. She was accused of saying in a conversation at a conference in March that the university was “controlled by wealthy Jews,” according to documents obtained by The New York Times through a freedom of information request.

She was also accused of saying that Jewish students were “wealthy and privileged” and not in need of her office’s diversity services, and that “Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel,” according to the documents, which were part of a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan.

Hmmm, I wonder exactly what the facts is? Let’s hire a five billion dollar an hour DC white shoe law firm to investigate offhand remarks made in a private conversation between a midlevel university administrator and a couple of narcs whose delicate political sensibilities were bruised in the process:

After the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan sent a letter to the university in August with the allegations, the school brought in an outside law firm, Covington & Burling, to investigate. The firm reported its findings in a memorandum that was obtained by The Times through an open records request. . . .

The allegations arose in March at a diversity conference in Philadelphia, sponsored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Two professors who attended the event, Naomi Yavneh Klos, who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans, and another Jewish professor said they had heard about the “negative experience” of a University of Michigan Jewish student, Dr. Yavneh Klos said in an interview.

When they learned that a Michigan D.E.I. administrator was at the conference, they decided to approach her, Dr. Yavneh Klos said.

“I think my colleague wanted to know, ‘Does the D.E.I. office work with these students?’” Dr. Yavneh Klos said. “‘Should the student go to the D.E.I. office?’ She said no. Jewish students are all rich. They don’t need us. That was the gist of what she said. It was really horrifying.”

Oh for Christ’s sake. Hey Naomi, guess what, the Jewish students at Michigan are for the most party pretty loaded, because that’s just the demographics of the undergraduate body as a whole at this point, especially the out of state contingent, given that annual cost of attendance for its members is a cool $80,000 per year, which times four is a whole lot of money. (Michigan does have a lot of need-based financial aid these days, but as is always the case at rich schools that are hard to get into, the vast majority of the student body is somewhere between lower upper and very upper class, so the fact that you don’t have to pay tuition if your family is working class ends up being relevant to a very small group of students).

Now of course a DEI official ideally shouldn’t engage in crass generalizations about Jewish students and money, even when those generalizations are, you know, largely true and everything. (A related issue here is what exactly is supposed to be the relationship between DEI and SES, given that most of the non-white students at a place like Michigan are from money as well). But note that the alleged crass generalizations were expressed in a putatively private conversation, where Ms. Dawson, as an employee of a public institution, was supposed to benefit from strong First Amendment protections in regard to her expression of her personal private political opinions.

Disciplining Ms. Dawson for her speech could be legally complicated at Michigan, which, as a public university, is subject to the First Amendment. Geoffrey Stone, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago, said that speech by government employees enjoyed broad protections when not made in an official capacity. The institution would have to prove that the speech “substantially undermines the ability of the individual to perform her responsibilities as an employee,” he said

So how did this get this far?

The university’s response to the allegations had been unusual in several ways, according to Ms. Ghannam, who suggested that it was rare to bring in an outside law firm to investigate a lower level official. She also said the university’s move to terminate Ms. Dawson, against the recommendations of her superior, was unusual.

“It’s deeply troubling that they would escalate the situation to termination based on one conversation in somebody’s private capacity,” Ms. Ghannam said.

Yeah I’d say that’s very unusual, to put it mildly.

Emails obtained by The Times suggested that the move to oust Ms. Dawson might have been influenced by a member of the Michigan Board of Regents, the university’s governing board.

Jon Kinsey, a university vice president, wrote to the regents in October on behalf of the president’s office to inform them that Ms. Dawson had been issued a written warning that additional incidents could result in termination, and that she would have to undergo training in antisemitism and leadership, according to the emails.

I mean even that seems possibly a bit harsh for a couple of off the cuff remarks in a private conversation — what is this, East Germany? — but whatever. Except:

The next day, Mark Bernstein, a regent, wrote to campus officials, including the president, Santa Ono, saying that he was “disgusted” with the university’s response, according to the emails.

“It does not appear that Ms. Dawson has been held accountable in any meaningful way,” Mr. Bernstein wrote. “Of course, this makes a mockery of your/our commitment to address antisemitism and broaden our D.E.I. efforts to include antisemitism and/or Jewish students.”

Mr. Bernstein wrote that the only acceptable outcome would be for Ms. Dawson to be “terminated immediately.”

Ms. Dawson was notified on Oct. 28 that the earlier lesser disciplinary action was being revised, according to her lawyer, and was told this week that she was fired.

Eight years ago, Bernstein withdrew a three million dollar gift he had planned to make to the university when he got upset about something or the other so . . . yeah. (Bernstein is the managing partner of what is possibly the richest personal injury law firm in the state; he’s the son of the firm’s founder).

Now I realize that there are complicated issues here about how white or off-white Jews in America are today, and the extent to which they count as “diverse” for DEI purposes. And all this is taking place in a larger context at the University of Michigan, where there’s a whole lot of tension between a lot of Jewish and Palestinian and other Middle Eastern students about Israel-Palestine matters right now. (There have been three unsavory incidents involving protests against Jordan Acker, another Jewish regent, as described in the story).

But Mark Bernstein isn’t helping things here, and Santa Ono, who just announced a seven billion dollar capital campaign, isn’t covering himself in glory either.

BTW a key to understanding this whole story is the truly remarkable transformation of the University of Michigan in the 40-plus years since I was an undergraduate there. When I enrolled, the university’s entire endowment was just over $100 million, which would be about a $350 million in 2024 money. Today it’s almost certainly north of $20 billion — a 5,600% increase in real terms. Between the time I enrolled as an undergraduate in 1979 and the time I graduated from the law school ten years later, the social transformation of the student body towards wealth and privilege was already striking, and in the 35 years since it has greatly accelerated, transforming the place into a “public Ivy,” with everything that phrase implies.

In any event, I’m eager to hear Bari Weiss’s views on this incident, which would appear to represent exactly the sort of totalitarian intolerance of diverse viewpoints in academia that she founded the University of Austin to combat.