This is a guest post by Professor Evan Morris of Yale University. Professor Morris wrote the letter, below, to the editors of the New York Times in response to their June 12, 2024 article “Miami President Named as Next UCLA Chancellor.” The Times rejected the letter.
Subject: Letter: “Miami President Named as Next U.C.L.A. Chancellor,” June 12, NYT
To the Editors:
How many generations does it take to wipe away someone’s Jewishness? According to Jill Cowan and Bill Witz, the answer is, two, provided it suits their identity-driven politics. In their article of June 12, “Miami President Named as Next U.C.L.A. Chancellor,” Cowan and Witz laud Julio Frenk, current president of University of Miami, as the “first Latino to lead UCLA.” Because Dr. Frenk is from Mexico, he satisfies the reporters’ needs to identify him as part of an oppressed minority. But without the slightest hint of irony, the article also reports that Frenks’ grandparents fled Germany in the 1930s. Gee, that means Frenk is almost certainly Jewish! If he is not a practicing Jew, he is certainly of Jewish ancestry (note, Frenk has spoken proudly of his Jewish heritage.) This latter fact is regrettably inconsistent with the woke agendas of Cowan and Witz. Cowan and Witz (with the acquiescence of the editorial team) choose to report the facts selectively to suit their ideologies. In doing so, they commit two sins. First, they warp the truth. Second, they help to disappear Jews from the public sphere and to erase the contributions of Jews to the intellectual life of America.
For shame!
Evan D. Morris, PhD Prof. Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University
The letter also misses the irony that Mexico just elected its first female president...who happens to be...wait for it...of JEWISH ancestry.
They seem upset that he’s a white male: “Every previous chancellor of U.C.L.A has been a white male, a record that stood in contrast to the school’s rich history of racial and ethnic diversity. The city’s first Black mayor, Tom Bradley, was an alumnus, as were the athletic and civil rights icons Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe.”
That’s my impression.