Heather Menefee

Overview

Heather Menefee has expressed hatred of Israel and participated in a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign at Northwestern University (Northwestern) in 2015 run by activists with the campus Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter (SJP Northwestern).

As of May 2023, Menefee’s LinkedIn page said she had been a PhD candidate in Northwestern’s Department of History since 2019. 

As of the same date, Menefee’s LinkedIn said she had been a part-time teaching assistant in the Institute for Advanced Study’s Dakota Language Program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (UMN-Twin Cities) since August 2022. Menefee’s LinkedIn also said she had worked part-time as an archival intern at Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye in St. Paul, Minnesota, since April 2021.

As of May 2023, Menefee’s LinkedIn said she graduated with a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill) in 2019. She also received a bachelor’s degree in Native American Studies from Northwestern in 2015.

As of the same date, Menefee’s LinkedIn said she was located in the greater Chicago area.

As of May 2023, Menefee used the handle “@HologramHeather” on Twitter.

Hatred of Israel

On May 21, 2018, Menefee tweeted: “hi there! openly vying for armageddon? in 2018 we have several political movements for you to choose from. could i interest you in…zionism…the kkk…white boys…”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

On August 27, 2019, Menefee tweeted: “tfw [that feeling when] Indigenous scholars have been describing and critiquing settler colonial violence in the US and Israel for decades while folks in other disciplines imagine both states as benevolent democracies .” Her tweet featured an article about Israel-based Elbit Systems selling border-monitoring equipment to the United States Border Control.

On May 10, 2021, Menefee tweeted: “Israel is killing Palestinian children and the US has helped/is helping.”

Menefee wrote her tweet at the beginning of Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW) against Hamas.

In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching OGW, carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

Anti-Israel Activism (BDS, SJP) 

On January 23, 2015, Menefee appeared in a photo from the NUDivest Facebook account in which she is standing with students wearing NUDivest t-shirts. 

The NUDivest campaign was launched in January 2015 and it was run by SJP Northwestern activists.

On February 1, 2015, Menefee co-signed a letter in support of NUDivest, “a student-led campaign calling on Northwestern University to divest from corporations that are profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestine.” 

The letter Menefee co-signed was written to “support divestment from [British security company] G4S, Elbit Systems and other corporations which profit from and export Palestinian suffering to the U.S.” The letter was titled: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle,” and it was published in the online student publication, North by Northwestern. 

The letter accused Israel of “apartheid” and “settler colonialism.” The letter called Israel’s security barrier an “Apartheid Wall” and also said: “In Israel and the U.S., police operate under racial paradigms that mark Black and Palestinian lives as criminal and expendable.”

Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.

On February 5, 2015, NUDivest held a BDS workshop, reportedly drafting a BDS resolution to be presented to the Northwestern Associated Student Government (ASG).

On February 18, 2015, the Northwestern ASG held a meeting where the NUDivest BDS resolution was debated. Five hours after the debate began, on February 19, 2015, NUDivest’s BDS resolution was passed via secret ballot by the Northwestern ASG. The vote tally was 24 in favor, 22 against and three abstentions. 

On February 19, 2015, Menefee appeared in a group photo from the NUDivest Facebook account. The photo’s caption said: “DIVESTMENT PASSES #NUDivest.” 

On September 14, 2018, Menefee tweeted: “Remi [Kanazi] came to Northwestern one year…he was a powerful speaker and poet and brought a lot of strength to activists on campus.” The tweet included a tweet that featured a photo of activist Remi Kanazi.