San José State College positioned a professor on administrative depart after he obtained right into a bodily altercation with a scholar throughout a pro-Palestine protest, based on an electronic mail from the varsity’s president and video of the incident.
Historical past professor Jonathan Roth was placed on depart Tuesday, a day after he grabbed and twisted the arm of a scholar when she tried to dam him from recording protesters on his cellphone, based on video of the incident reviewed by The Occasions.
“Happily, no critical bodily accidents have been reported,” San José State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson wrote in a memo to the varsity neighborhood. “At the moment, no police fees have been filed. The circumstances of Monday’s incident, which led to the visitor speaker and college students being faraway from a classroom, are nonetheless below investigation.”
Roth didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The incident is the most recent involving protests and violence on school campuses over the battle in Gaza, sparked by the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Hamas.
Members of the group College students for Justice in Palestine have been protesting Feb. 19 exterior a classroom in Sweeney Corridor the place a visitor lecturer, Jeffrey Blutinger, was chatting with a category concerning the battle. The scholars had determined to protest as a consequence of Blutinger’s “problematic” views, based on Sang Hea Kil, a San José State professor who’s the college advisor for College students for Justice in Palestine.
Blutinger, a Jewish research professor at Lengthy Seashore State College, has argued that Israel will not be committing genocide in Gaza and has mentioned that pro-Palestine protests on campuses have appeared supportive of Hamas.
Whereas Blutinger was talking within the classroom, Roth tried to take video of the protesters within the hallway.
Video footage exhibits Roth taking out his cellphone and holding it as if recording. A scholar sporting a kaffiyeh, a standard Palestinian headdress, places her hand as much as block the recording, and Roth grabs her hand and twists it out of the best way, video exhibits.
College students within the hallway grow to be incensed, getting in Roth’s face and yelling. “You don’t contact a girl,” one might be heard repeatedly yelling at Roth.
“Get him out,” one other screams.
Officers with the San José Police Division obtained between Roth and the scholars, then escorted the professor out of the hallway, video exhibits.
“They handled Jonathan Roth with child gloves,” mentioned Kil concerning the police. “The look on Jonathan Roth’s face about what he did was very smug. He regarded very pleased with himself for what he did.”
Kil mentioned Roth ought to have been arrested for assault.
The college, which put Roth on depart the next day, declined to remark past the president’s memo.
Roth served six years within the Military Nationwide Guard. On his college profile, he bemoans the “quasi-Marxist perspective” in analysis that he believes celebrates “revolutionary” violence.
“Tied to that is the concept of cultural relativism and Third Worldism, which I feel has been very dangerous not solely to academia, however hurts the very folks it purports to assist,” Roth wrote on his profile.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated the college’s swift transfer to position Roth on depart.
“Such an motion will not be solely inexcusable but additionally a violation of the rights and security of scholars,” mentioned the group’s San Francisco Bay Space workplace.
Kil, in the meantime, referred to as on the college to fireplace Roth over the incident.
The hallway scuffle led the varsity to chop off the speak that had been underway within the classroom. Blutinger referred to as it a violation of educational freedom that his speak was canceled.
“Everybody is targeted on Roth, however I used to be the one who wasn’t allowed to talk,” he mentioned in an interview with The Occasions. “I had the administration and police cease me from chatting with a classroom. That’s not permissible. They did it for problems with public security, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a violation of my rights and the scholars to listen to me.”
Blutinger mentioned he noticed the incident with Roth on video and had no touch upon it.
“If we will enable folks to close down courses on the college as a result of we don’t like who’s instructing it, then the general public college will stop to exist,” he mentioned.
