Chancellor and Provost office to take control of local antisemitism initiative

Pitt’s Faculty Assembly held its final meeting of the semester on Dec. 4 over Zoom where President Robin Kear announced the Chancellor and Provost’s office’s desire for a broader university-level working group to assess antisemitism in a national and local context “with particular attention to Western Pennsylvania and the city of Pittsburgh,” according to Kear.

The creation of an ad hoc committee on antisemitism through the Executive Committee surprised members of the Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee over Thanksgiving break after Kear announced the Faculty Senate would no longer pursue the creation of the ad hoc through EIADAC. Members of EIADAC and Faculty Senate initially expressed their frustration with the canceled motion, but some now support a higher authority takeover.

Kear addressed the halt of the ad hoc on antisemitism committee at the Dec. 4 meeting. According to Kear, seven of the 12 Senate Committees, including EIADAC, held previous meetings to discuss the directions of the ad hoc committee before Thanksgiving break, kicking off different conversations inside and outside the Senate. 

“While the committees were discussing this, there was also interest from the Chancellor and the Provost to bring this to a university-level working group,” Kear said. “The executive committee made the decision to pull the ad hoc Senate committee resolution in favor of a different and broader direction.”

The new organization, authorized by the Chancellor and Provost, will include faculty, students, staff and community members. There is no date set for when the new committee or working group will be established.

“The broad outlines of the charter for this working group have been developed, [but] every detail is not yet finalized,” Kear said.

Kear also reassured members the working group will not “set limits on self-expression or free speech” in university-approved settings like classrooms or speaker events. The potential for conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism under Pitt’s current definition of antisemitism was a point of contention in past discussions of an antisemitism ad hoc committee.

Jennifer Murtazashvili, a graduate school of public and international affairs professor, will continue to work as a co-chair of the working group with the Chancellor’s office. 

With Kear’s term as president ending this June, she will not have a role with the Chancellor’s office or working group. Kear and the next President, who will be elected at the end of the spring semester, will receive reports and recommendations from the committee to report to the Faculty Assembly. 

“I think this is a really beneficial way to move forward at the highest levels of the University to address these issues,” Kear said.