Samir Chopra

Overview

Samir Chopra is an associate professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College (Brooklyn) and the City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY GC).

On July 28, 2014, Chopra was one of 24 protesters arrested for blocking traffic during an anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in New York. The protest occurred during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), implemented to destroy Hamas attack tunnels and stop rocket attacks from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians.

After his arraignment, Chopra wrote "I would do it again."

Defending Hate Speech

Chopra regularly champions the cause of Professor Steven Salaita, the Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and a frequent subject of Chopra’s blog.

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.

Defending Student Militancy

On May 20, 2016, Chopra testified in defense of two SJP activists, Sarah Aly and Thomas DeAngelis, who were among nine Brooklyn College Student Coalition (BCSC) members whose disruptive behavior prompted the shutdown of a Faculty Council meeting on campus.

The students crashed the university’s Faculty Council session to deplore "atrocities committed against students, our communities, and the world that Brooklyn College and CUNY administration must be held accountable for." These “atrocities” ranged from “rising tuition, undercover New York Police Department agents on campus after 9/11”, “the lack of Black and Latina/o faculty, blatant disrespect directed towards the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies department and Africana Studies department,” and “Brooklyn College’s commitment to all forms of imperialism and settler-colonialism, including, but not limited to Zionism.”

Faculty members reported that the students began chanting anti-Jewish epithets, including “Zionists off campus.”

After Faculty Council Chair Yedidyah Langsam (who wears a Jewish head covering and a short beard) told the students they were out of order, one student verbally attacked Langsam — calling him a “Zionist pig”

Langsam said that “Once she made that remark” to him, he adjourned the meeting.

Aly later told a staff reporter for the Ditmas Park-Flatbush Patch that a single student admitted to saying “Zionism out of CUNY” — but not “Zionists out of CUNY.”

On February 17, 2016, the University president, Karen Gould, admonished BCSC in a campus-wide email, stating: “we find this disruptive behavior unacceptable and the hateful comments especially abhorrent.”

Gould also called for an investigation into the offending students’ conduct and for appropriate punitive measures. Aly and DeAnglis were initially charged with violating CUNY’s code of conduct, including intentional obstruction, failure to comply with lawful directions, unauthorized occupancy of college facilities and disorderly conduct.

On May 20, 2016, Chopra disputed the veracity of the charges and urged the administration to "Drop the charges; apologize to the students." The next day, Chopra wrote that “Acquittals don’t address this damage; reparations are due” to Aly and DeAngelis.

On May 31, 2016, the anti-Israel legal advocacy organizations Palestine Legal and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)represented Aly and DeAngelis at a five hour disciplinary hearing, where they were ultimately charged and admonished by the university with “failure to comply with lawful directions.”

SJP

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.

The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.

SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.

SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.

SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.

Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/samir.chopra.7737

Twitter:https://twitter.com/EyeOnThePitch

Blog:https://samirchopra.com/