Late Dispatches from the Campus Wars

Rachel Dawson

RACHEL DAWSON, A coordinator of diversity initiatives at the University of Michigan, was fired over allegations of “antisemitic remarks” reported to campus administration by the Anti-Defamation League. The accusations against Dawson (e.g. that she said Jewish students “are all rich”), are uncorroborated and denied by her attorney Amanda Ghannam, who is threatening to sue.

A statement by Dawson’s support committee charges that two professors who approached Dawson at a conference “fabricated allegations that Ms. Dawson had made anti-Semitic comments, and filed a complaint with the ADL and the university. Instead of using its internal processes to investigate complaints, UM hired an external form, Covington and Burling, which also represents the ADL, to investigate.”

A source at U-M tells Against the Current that Dawson was reportedly “very visible trying to protect students from police brutality during a student protest, making her a target of the administration.” The firing comes at a time when attacks on diversity programs are also attracting student protests.

Attorney Ghannam says that “What Ms. Dawson did there (at an August 28 protest) was advocate for student protesters not to be violently arrested.

“The fact that (the University) would rely on Ms. Dawson attempting to protect those students from violent arrest by police as a reason for her termination, I think it speaks to a wider and more troubling pattern of the University of Michigan’s abdication of its responsibilities to uphold people’s First Amendment rights.”

Professor Rebekah Modrak, chair of the U-M Faculty Senate, regards Dawson as “a fierce protector of all students in Academic Multicultural Initiatives, including Jewish students…

“I have complete confidence in her and her integrity (in denying the anti-Semitism allegations — ed.) I was with her on theDiag during Festfall when she pleaded with DPSS not to harm the students.”

January-February 2025, ATC 234