Glenn Hendler

Overview

Glenn Hendler was the proposed faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Fordham University (Fordham) when the university banned the student group in December 2016. He is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Hendler has also shown support for anti-Israel agitators including professor Jasbir Puar, pro-BDS congresswoman Ilhan Omar and disgraced professor Steven Salaita.

As of January 2017, Hendler was listed as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)'s Academic Council.

Hendler is a professor and Chair of English at Fordham.

Supporting SJP

On October 6, 2016, Hendler agreed to be the faculty advisor for a proposed SJP chapter at Fordham. In a December 2016 email, the Dean of Students Keith Eldredge announced that he had vetoed SJP’s application to form as a registered student club at the university.

Eldredge stated that he could not support the formation of an organization “whose sole purpose is advocating political goals of a specific group, and against a specific country, when these goals clearly conflict with and run contrary to the mission and values of the University.”

On January 25, 2017, Hendler signed a letter by JVP’s Academic Council, demanding that Fordham University rescind its rejection of SJP as a student group on campus. In a January 20, 2017 Fordham Observer article, Hendler was quoted defending the formation of a campus SJP chapter to faculty members.

On January 20, 2017, Hendler shared on Facebook a press release by Fordham SJP calling for a rally on January 23, 2017 to resist Fordham’s decision to deny SJP club status on campus.

The press release called the decision an “attack on student activists” and “an attack on our entire community.” The rally was organized by student activist Sapphira Lurie who was working to create the SJP chapter at Fordham.

On February 1, 2017, Fordham Dean of Students, Keith Eldredge issued a disciplinary charge against Lurie for allegedly violating the University Code of Conduct’s “Demonstration Policy” by organizing the protest without receiving proper authorization to do so through the established university procedures.

On February 19, 2017, Hendler signed an open letter urging Fordham’s administration to drop the charges against Lurie, claiming that her actions were “consistent with the educational values that we hold most dear at Fordham.”

A February 22, 2017 Electronic Intifada article reported that Hendler said he had offered to accompany Lurie to her hearing.

On April 26, 2017, Fordham students, with the assistance of Palestine Legal, filed a lawsuit against the university, contesting its refusal to grant SJP club status. When Fordham moved to dismiss the suit, Palestine Legal listed Hendler as one of five petitioners opposing Fordham’s motion to dismiss.

In July 2017, Hendler filed a personal court affidavit in which he claimed SJP was being unfairly targeted for anti-Semitism. Hendler went on to allege that “when it comes to issues involving Palestinian rights, it appears that Fordham operates with a different set of rules.”

Supporting BDS

Hendler was listed as an endorser of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), posted on April 21, 2016.

On February 4, 2014, Hendler signed “An Open Letter on the Anti-Boycott Bills,” which opposed anti-BDS legislation then pending before New York State’s legislature.

Hendler signed a petition titled “Stand Against Apartheid Lawfare!” to show support for the American Studies Association (ASA) and BDS, posted on January 1, 2018.

The ASA National Council had unanimously adopted a resolution singling out Israeli universities for academic boycott in December 2013. On April 20, 2016, a lawsuit was filed by ASA members against the ASA officers who advanced the boycott, accusing them of hijacking the ASA for personal political purposes and perverting their duties as officials of the ASA.

The petition attacked the Louis D. Brandeis Center, claiming the center was engaged in “a frivolous and racist lawsuit” as “lawfare” against members of the ASA, the ASA itself and against the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

The petition also accused the center of “unscrupulous actions that support practices of settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and white supremacy, McCarthyism, Islamophobia, and racism in the US.”

In 2016 Hendler signed a Modern Language Association Members for Justice in Palestine open letter that called on the Modern Language Association (MLA) to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

At the MLA’s January 2017 annual meeting, its delegate council rejected the BDS resolution and instead voted to support Resolution 2017-1 (2017-1), which resolved that MLA would refrain from adopting BDS.

On January 8, 2017, Hendler posted on Facebook that he was “ashamed to be part of the discipline of literary studies, and a member of the MLA.” He went on to say that MLA’s condemnation of BDS put the MLA “on the side of occupation; on the side of apartheid; on the side of settler colonialism” and that his inclination was “to leave the organization and never return.”

On April 18, 2017, Hendler signed a petition posted against anti-BDS resolution 2017-1. By a vote of the full membership in June 2017, however, the MLA adopted 2017-1 by a 2-1 margin.

On January 15, 2018, Hendler promoted on Facebook a post that said “The main task of BDS--and this is why the academic boycott was always so important--was to challenge that [Israel’s] cultural legitimacy… and then to have that slowly filter up into the state.”

Endorsing Jasbir Puar

In his July 8, 2017 affidavit, Hendler criticised Fordham for asking anti-Israel professor Jasbir Puar, who was scheduled to speak at the university, to allow the talk to be videotaped and the recording be made available to the public. Puar subsequently cancelled her talk.

Puar, an anti-Israel Rutgers professor, gave a lecture at Vassar College in February 2016 titled “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters.”

Puar began her speech by calling for armed struggle against Israel. She went on to demonize Israel, suggesting that Israelis harvest the organs of dead Palestinians. Puar also claimed that Israel was maiming and “stunting” Palestinians via food restrictions.