Workshop for Educators: Understanding and Addressing Antisemitism and Islamophobia, with Hussein Ibish and David Schraub

Event Details:

• Date: Thursday, May 23, 2024
• Time: 9:00-10:30 a.m. (optional breakfast at 8:30 a.m.)
• Location: Lokey Education Building 276
• Audience: All UO student-serving staff (faculty, GEs, Advisors); Capacity is limited to those who register

As educators, we care deeply about our students. The ongoing violence in the Middle East impacts members of our community in different ways, as do the long, complex histories surrounding antisemitism and Islamophobia. Many students are striving to articulate and act on their values, and to name the contexts and histories that feel meaningful. But many of us—educators and students alike—also have gaps in our understanding of multiple contexts of struggle and survival, and of the plurality of meanings in the language we use to speak about it all.

During this discussion, Hussein Ibish and David Schraub will share information to help us develop a more critical understanding of the forms antisemitism and Islamophobia typically take, including in our courses and on our campuses, and the impacts they have on students. We’ll have an opportunity to reflect on how our own histories shape our understanding of/reaction to antisemitic and Islamophobic statements and how we can stay grounded in empathy for students as they learn and act in a context that is fraught and contested. We’ll discuss promising practices for reducing antisemitism or Islamophobia and pre-plan least one way to address them in our own class contexts. We hope this event can help us better enact shared principles drafted by our colleagues, including that “We are best served by teaching complexity, by helping students understand the multiplicity of contexts and perspectives, and by modeling how to hold complexity with curiosity and empathy”

Do you have questions you’d like the speakers to address and/or accessibility needs? Let us know in our Qualtrics survey or by contacting tep@uoregon.edu.

This event is brought to you by the Division of Global Engagement and the Teaching Engagement Program.

Featured Speakers:

Hussein Ibish

Senior Resident Scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a regular columnist for The National, The Atlantic and The Daily Beast. He has written numerous books and essays including his recent book What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009). Ibish was included in all three years (2011, 2012, and 2013) of Foreign Policy’s “Twitterati 100,” the magazine’s list of 100 “must-follow” Twitter feeds on foreign policy. 

Ibish previously served as a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

David Schraub

Associate Professor of Law, Lewis and Clark Law School

David Schraub is an Associate Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School, teaching constitutional law and anti-discrimination law. He is a prolific writer on contemporary issues of racism and antisemitism. He is a lead drafter of the "Nexus" document on antisemitism, which parses antisemitism and discourse on Israel, and was referenced in President Biden's 2023 National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. In 2023, he co-convened the second annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference, an international event which drew speakers from the US and abroad, culminating in a special issue in the Lewis & Clark Law Review. His most recent academic work explores dilemmas faced by university administrators regulating campus protests and other free speech controversies. David holds a BA from Carleton College, a JD from the University of Chicago Law School, and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.