Anti-Israeli bias at Oxford

Today's UK Telegraph reports on the case of an Israeli grad student being denied a place in an Oxford University research lab because he had "served in the Israeli Army".   Appalling.

The Professor who wrote this email, Andrew Wilkie, the Nuffield professor of pathology and a fellow of Pembroke College, has apologized unreservedly and admitted that he made "a mistake".   I believe his apology is sincere, but his original action is emblematic of a larger bias issue among UK academics.

As a graduate student from NYC studying at Oxford during the early 1980s, I was shocked to hear students making openly anti-semitic comments.   Growing up here in "Hymietown" (as Rev. Jesse Jackson affectionately calls it), I had never seen open discrimination against Jews before.   I'm afraid this ignoble tradition lives on in the UK, even amongst the presumably enlightened intellectual elites.

Send an email to Ms. Joanne Bowley, Pembroke College's development manager, telling her what you think about this incident.

You might also try to email the new Chancellor of Oxford University, Chris Patten via his day job as Commissioner of External Relations for the European Union.   Alternatively, you might try to reach Patten via an email to Ms. Helen Carasso, Oxford University's Director of Public Relations.