Jewish professor fully exonerated after removal for saying ‘Hamas are murderers’

A Jewish economics professor at the University of Southern California has been cleared of any wrongdoing following a seven-month investigation into comments he made to pro-Palestinian protesters.

Professor John Strauss last November was banned from teaching on campus for the remainder of the fall semester after saying to the student demonstrators: “Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are.”

An edited version of a recording of Stauss’ comments that went viral on social media omitted his full remarks, prompting some to believe he suggested all Palestinians should be killed.

More than 10 students filed complaints against Strauss alleging harassment, discrimination, and creating an unsafe environment, The Los Angeles Times reported, adding while there “was no dispute that Strauss said the words … he denied that this amounted to a threat to students, as Hamas is deemed a terrorist organization and committed atrocities in Israel on Oct. 7.”

The investigation recently came to an end with all complaints filed by students dismissed, and the professor facing no discipline for his actions, the Times reported.

Strauss said he believes that there should be no limits to free speech on campus as long as there is no “incitement to violence.”

USC determined there wasn’t enough evidence that Strauss created an unsafe environment with his words or that he was targeting any student in particular, Harris told The Times.

Accusations that the scholar purposely stepped on anti-Israel signs were also debunked.

“Strauss’ lawyer also said the investigator had video of the encounter — including the clips that had gone viral — and aerial footage from ‘Trojan Cam,’ a live feed of the statue of Tommy Trojan on campus,” reported The Los Angeles Times.

The legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relation, Amr Shabaik, told The Times: “We are disappointed that USC has found no wrongdoing despite the professor being captured on camera going out of his way to harass and intimidate USC students honoring the lives of innocent Palestinians killed by Israel.”

https://www.thecollegefix.com/jewish-professor-fully-exonerated-after-removal-for-saying-hamas-are-murderers/

[TBC: We need to be reminded that as one writer notes, there “…is the self-evident truth that Hamas has never wavered from its determination to perpetrate the genocide of Jews living in Israel.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it," reads the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, more commonly known as the Hamas Covenant, adopted on Aug. 18, 1988. Replete with antisemitic tropes, the Covenant asserts as a premise that "Israel, Judaism, and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people." Quoting from the Quran, it warns "those who believe not, Ye shall be overcome, and thrown together into hell." The Charter makes abundantly clear that Hamas is determined not just to obliterate the State of Israel but to ravage and kill the Jews living there as it did on Oct. 7.]