Don Suspended
Professor Andrew Wilkie, who earlier this year refused a student's application solely for his compulsary military service in the Israeli army, has resigned as a Fellow of Pembroke College, been suspended for two months by the University, and has been mandated to take further training in equal opportunities.
Upon applying for a doctoral position in Wilkie's PhD research group, Tel Aviv student Amit Duvshani received a reply stating: "I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army." An investigation was launched by the university's Visitorial Board after the e-mail was leaked to the press entitled: "Oxford bigotry exposed to the world!"
In an official statement released this week, Sir Colin Lucas, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, accepted the board's recommendation to suspend Wilkie without pay for two months, the highest penalty imposable short of removal from office. The board made several further recommendations including further equal opportunities training, which Wilkie "is determined to make full use of...to ensure that his actions and those of his staff reflect best practice in future."
A University spokesperson stated: "This ruling reflects that there can be no place for any form of discrimination within the University of Oxford other than on the grounds of merit."
Amit Duvshani, the Israeli student at the centre of the controversy, believes the action taken by the Visitorial Board is "sufficient". However, he told The OxStu that "there's still a lot to be done on a wider scale to fight the boycott on Israeli academics and issues of anti-semitism".
A statement by OUSU said they were "disappointed that the University is not taking the lead in requiring every member of University and college staff to undergo equal opportunities training so that a damaging situation like this is never repeated". Dan Paskins, VP (Graduates), said: "it is not clear why it [the Visitorial Board] has come to this decision", suggesting that Wilkie should be barred from any involvement in future admissions to "send a clear message to potential applicants of all backgrounds that the university is committed to equal opportunities and access based on academic merit only".
Roni Tabick, co-President of the University's Jewish Society, said that in general J-Soc were "very pleased with the result", and satisfied that the University had taken appropriate action that will hopefully send out a good message regarding equal opportunities in admissions. However, he agreed that perhaps Wilkie ought to be permanently barred from having involvement in the admissions process.
Danny Stone, Campaigns Organiser for the Union of Jewish Students, said that the union "can be very proud of the work they put in to ensure Oxford treated this case with the utmost seriousness", but a statement said that UJS are "still calling for more to be done".
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, formerly Rabbi at Oxford and now a prominent US talk show host and writer for The Jerusalem Post, believed that a public apology would have been more appropriate. He told The OxStu: "I am not a believer in punishment as retribution, but as correction. I would have much preferred for Wilkie to be asked to publicly apologise for his behaviour; I am saddened that suspension has been chosen instead."
He added that as Rabbi at Oxford for eleven years, he felt that the strong anti-Israeli sentiment he encountered "was motivated by abysmal ignorance of Israel's record rather than Jew-hatred."
23rd Oct 2003