A statistics professor encouraged students to protest against the Trump administration after canceling their midterms, according to an email sent to University of Chicago students.
Yali Amit told students in his machine learning and large-scale data analysis class that their midterm test was being canceled and would be administered as a homework assignment instead. Amit wrote in the email that they should join a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump.
‘Marching against this dangerous authoritarian administration is of utmost importance!’
The email was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, which noted that Amit had a history of opposing Israel and mentioned the issue in the email.
“The country is in an emergency. The Trump administration is kidnapping people off the street, deporting them to foreign prisons, jailing and threatening to deport students who demonstrated in support of Palestinians,” Amit wrote, emphasizing some parts in bold.
“So, today, thousands across the country are demonstrating in a national day of action. As a small contribution to this day of action I am cancelling the midterm and calling you, if you are able, to join the Chicago demonstration announced here,” he added. “Marching against this dangerous authoritarian administration is of utmost importance!”
Amit did not respond to a request for a comment from the Beacon or from Blaze Media. A spokesperson for the university said only that Amit’s comments were not “appropriate” but did not say what disciplinary action he might face.
A student in Amit’s class gave a comment to the Beacon to criticize the professor.
“It is inappropriate for a professor to cancel an exam to encourage students to attend a political protest,” the student said. “Furthermore the message indicates that this professor, like many others in academia, assumes that all students share his left-wing political beliefs. The professor does not recognize that students might not only prefer to attend class than protest, but may oppose the left-wing views that he is protesting for.”
The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funding to colleges and universities over the lack of accountability for anti-Israel protests that target Jewish students for intimidation. Among those were the University of Chicago, which lost $6 million in federal funding.
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