Monisha Das Gupta

Overview

Monisha Das Gupta is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has defended anti-Israel activists including, disgraced Professor Steven Salaita. 

Das Gupta is also in a writing group with anti-Israel professor, Cynthia Franklin.

As of November 2019, Das Gupta was a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and in the Department of Women's Studies and the Chair of the Department of Ethnic Studiesat the University of Hawai’i (UH).

Supporting BDS

As of January 2020, Das Gupta was a signatory to a list of endorsers of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). 

In February 2014, Das Gupta signed an open letter condemning the administration of the University of Hawaii (UH), for expressing its opposition to the American Studies Association’s (ASA) recent endorsement of the academic boycott of Israel.

Signatories of the letter, signed by Das Gupta, charged that opponents of the academic boycott of Israel “support academic institutions that participate in the denial of human rights, including the right to education, experienced by Palestinians who, like Native Hawaiians, live under conditions of occupation.”

The letter went on to charge: “our administrators nowhere in their statement acknowledge Palestinian existence, let alone ways Palestinians’ academic and human rights are violated by Israel and with the support from the US of over three billion federal tax dollars a year in direct aid alone.”

Defending Anti-Israel Activists

Das Gupta signed a petition, published on October 8, 2018, in the University of Florida student newspaper, expressing support for anti-Israel activist Lara Alqasem.

In October 2018, Alqasem was detained at Ben Gurion airport after trying to enter Israel, because of her anti-Israel activism and, specifically, her support for the BDS movement. Alqasem was granted entry into Israel after appealing to the Israeli Supreme Court.  

The petition stated: “We the undersigned faculty call for the immediate release from detention at Ben Gurion Airport of Lara Alqasem, a US citizen of Palestinian heritage who was traveling to the region to continue studies in Jerusalem.”

The petition went on to claim: “...The detention unfortunately suggests that Israel discriminates against Arab American students, who because of their cultural and familial connections to Palestine (Lara has Palestinian grandparents) are regularly turned back when they seek to enter Israel.”

In 2014, Das Gupta reportedly signed a letter to the Board of Trustees from UH staff, in support of a “boycott of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) until you reinstate Dr. Steven Salaita.”

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

 Aikau also signed a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”

Social Media and Weblinks

University Website: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~dasgupta/