Posts tagged Cornell
Union accused of forcing Jewish students at MIT, Stanford, and Cornell to fund pro-Hamas agenda
August 12, 2025 // At MIT, following the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the UE affiliate supported campus protests favoring Hamas, the letter states. Five Jewish graduate students requested religious accommodations to avoid paying dues to the union, citing conflicts with their faith. UE General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker reportedly denied the requests, saying, “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” At Stanford, three graduate students faced similar challenges. Their requests for accommodations were met with what the letter calls an “abusive” questionnaire, which the union dropped after legal pressure.
Jewish MIT students sue union, say they are forced to pay dues to anti-Semitic organization
April 2, 2024 // “Jewish graduate students are a minority at MIT. We can’t remove the GSU or disabuse it of its antisemitism,” Sussman wrote. “But we also can’t support an organization that actively works toward the eradication of the Jewish homeland, where I have family living now.” Sussman and his colleagues initially sought recourse through non-legal channels, sending letters to the union asking for an exemption. UE allegedly denied these requests, however, writing in their reply to Sussman that “no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” The students reportedly filed their charges through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal body responsible for enforcing worker laws that “make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex … national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”