University of Michigan fires diversity administrator who said Jews are 'wealthy and privileged'

The University of Michigan has fired an administrator after she was accused of saying that Jewish students should not benefit from diversity programs as they are "wealthy and privileged," according to documents obtained by the New York Times on Thursday.

The administrator, Rachel Dawson, formerly worked as director of UoM's office of academic multicultural initiatives.

According to the documents and her lawyer, the firing comes on the back of alleged comments made at a conference in March, in which she claimed the university was "controlled by wealthy Jews."

Dawson also said that “Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel,” according to the documents, which formed part of a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan. 

At the March conference, two Jewish professors, including Naomi Yavneh Klos of Loyola University New Orleans, approached Dawson as they were curious about the university's approach to Jewish students.

The other professor asked Dawson if the DEI office works with Jewish students, to which Dawson reportedly said that it did not, as "Jewish students are all rich." The professors then filed a report with ADL.

ADL Michigan sent a letter to the university in August with the claims, and the university subsequently hired a law firm, Covington & Burling, to investigate.

While Covington & Burling said it was “not possible to determine with certainty whether Ms. Dawson made the exact remarks” due to the lack of recording or witness other than those who reported it, the conclusion was that the “weight of the available evidence supports ADL Michigan’s report.”

Dawson plans to sue the university, her lawyer, Amanda Ghannam, said.

First amendment violation 

“The university has clearly, blatantly violated Ms. Dawson’s First Amendment rights, and we will take appropriate legal action,” Ghannam said on Thursday.

Ghannam also said it was “deeply troubling that [UoM] would escalate the situation to termination based on one conversation in somebody’s private capacity."

According to Ghannam, Dawson was originally told she would only need to undergo training but was fired nevertheless. NYT reported that the university had originally planned a minor punishment but fired her on the request of a regent, citing emails.

Emails obtained by NYT suggest that one of the regents, Mark Bernstein, was influential in the move to dismiss Dawson.

At the time, the university's vice president, Jon Kinsey, warned regents that additional incidents from Dawson could result in termination and that she would be undertaking training in antisemitism. 

The following day, Bernstein wrote to the university's president, Santa Ono, saying he was "disgusted" at the course of action.

“It does not appear that Ms. Dawson has been held accountable in any meaningful way,” Bernstein said, according to NYT. “Of course, this makes a mockery of your/our commitment to address antisemitism and broaden our DEI efforts to include antisemitism and/or Jewish students.”

Bernstein added that the only acceptable solution would be to fire her.

The University of Michigan declined to confirm whether she had been fired or not.

This comes after another of the university's regents, Jordan Acker, awoke early Monday morning to the sound of objects being thrown through their home’s front window. The family’s vehicle was also graffitied with the slogans “divest” and “free Palestine.” 

According to photographs published by UMich Public Affairs, the red inverted triangle symbol used in Hamas propaganda to denote the targeting of enemies was also scrawled on the car.

It was the third time Acker, who is Jewish, had been targeted by protesters.