Last week's announcement of Michael Oren as this year's keynoter has evoked a spectrum of responses in campus publications and online forums ranging from enthusiastic support to wary apprehension to outrage.
Neither Oren nor the suburban Boston university are strangers to such controversies.
Oren was at the center of a debate over free speech after hecklers were arrested for repeatedly disrupting his address at the University of California, Irvine in February. And Brandeis, a secular university with a large Jewish student population and many Jewish donors, drew heat in some circles in 2006 for tapping Tony Kushner to receive an honorary degree, with critics citing the playwright’s statement that "it would have been better if Israel never happened" and his assertion that Israel was guilty of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
NEW YORK (JTA) — Brandeis has sparked a controversy in the university community with its selection of Israel’s ambassador to Washington as its commencement speaker.
Last week’s announcement of Michael Oren as this year’s keynoter has evoked a spectrum of responses in campus publications and online forums ranging from enthusiastic support to wary apprehension to outrage.
Neither Oren nor the suburban Boston university are strangers to such controversies.
