December 11, 2017 — Milburn, New Jersey
AJC welcomed the announcement by Rutgers University that an openly antisemitic professor, Michael Chinkidas, will be disciplined by the school. The announcement, in a letter to faculty from Rutgers President Robert Barchi and Chancellor Deba Dutta, follows an investigation by the university into Chinkidas’s social media postings.
“President Barchi and Chancellor Dutta have demonstrated that antisemitism is not welcome on campus and antisemites will be held accountable,” said Rabbi David Levy, Director of AJC New Jersey. “Professor Michael Chikindas has been generating a cesspool of antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic hateful speech on his social media accounts.”
The university’s initial actions will remove Chikindas from teaching required courses, and his position as director of the Center for Digestive Health at the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health. No Rutgers student will be required to take a course that he teaches.
The action also requires Chikindas to participate in a cultural sensitivity training program, and he will be subject to ongoing monitoring if and when he returns to the classroom.
