Further Steps Taken at DU to Combat Antisemitism

Thank you for your many messages of care and concern following the heinous antisemitic incidents on our campus.  We’re writing now to share the steps that we have taken to raise awareness in the community about the history and deep harm of antisemitism and to further cement our denouncement of antisemitism and all hateful acts.

We’ve come together with faculty, campus leaders, and Jewish community leaders to review the work that we’ve undertaken on campus to educate students on bias and prejudice through, for example, our bystander intervention training and Bias Incident Response Team.  In response, we’ve received helpful input from leaders both within DU and the broader community on how we can build on our existing efforts to underscore even further our firm stance against bias and prejudice.

We’ve also organized campus engagements across the next couple of months to raise the community’s consciousness of antisemitism, including April 16 and 17 events co-sponsored with DU Hillel and Project Shema, whose details we look forward to sharing soon. Working to uphold academic freedom while redressing antisemitism on our campus, we are in discussion with the head of the regional Anti-Defamation League about hosting a conversation with the Provost on eradicating hate on our campus.

Likewise, in April, we will co-sponsor the Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Day at Temple Emanuel on April 19 and will publicize this broadly to attract as many community members as wish to attend this important program.

With Student Affairs and Inclusive Excellence, the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, faculty, and other partners on and off campus, we’re exploring additional ways we might increase the number of opportunities students have to learn about antisemitism on campus, both as part of coursework and in other campus settings.

Lastly, our policies, which are in place to protect all students, prevent us from sharing details regarding investigations involving student conduct, including what disciplinary actions may be taken. That said, we can assure our community members that we take any conduct motivated by hate or bias extraordinarily seriously. Such acts call upon the university to bring meaningful punishment to bear on any perpetrators.

As always, please feel free to reach out to our offices with any questions or concerns you might have.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Haefner
Chancellor

Mary Clark

Provost