Josef Sorett is an American scholar of religion and race in the Americas. He has served as the dean of Columbia College of Columbia University since July 2022. [1]
Josef Sorett received a Bachelor of Science in Health and Exercise Science from Oral Roberts University, an MDiv in Religion and Literature from Boston University in 2000, and his PhD in African American Studies from Harvard University. [2]
Sorett began teaching at Columbia University in 2009, and later became professor of religion and African American and African diaspora studies, chair of the department of religion, and director of the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice. His research focuses on how religion has shaped cultures of Black communities and movements in the United States, from a perspective that straddles history, literature, religion, art and music. [2] Sorett is the editor of The Sexual Politics of Black Churches published by Columbia University Press in 2022. [3] The book investigates the politics of sexuality within Black churches and their communities. [2] Sorett, who since 2022 has also served as Chair of Columbia University's Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee to "foster an inclusive campus community" with dialogue about campus racism, received Columbia's Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2022. [4] [5] [6]
Since July 2022, Sorett has been the dean of Columbia College and vice president of undergraduate education. [2]
During Columbia's annual alumni reunion on May 31, 2024, Sorett texted with three other Columbia deans about an antisemitism panel on campus, responding "yup" to comments that the other deans had made and at one point texting "LMAO". [7] [8] [9] Sorett apologized on June 9. [10] On July 2, a petition signed by more than 2,000 students, alumni, and parents was sent that called on the college to also remove Sorett for his role in the incident. [11] The three other deans were removed from their positions and resigned on August 8. [11]
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Columbia University, officially Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest in the United States.
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference of eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, and in football, in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The term Ivy League is used more broadly to refer to the eight schools that belong to the league, which are globally-renowned as elite colleges associated with academic excellence, highly selective admissions, and social elitism. The term was used as early as 1933, and it became official in 1954 following the formation of the Ivy League athletic conference.
Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nationality, culture, generation or belong to any other part of a particular population.
Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., located in the Shaw neighborhood. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University, a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan, it was founded by the Church of England in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II of Great Britain. It is Columbia University's traditional undergraduate program, offering BA degrees, and is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.
Allen University is a private historically black university in Columbia, South Carolina, United States. It has more than 600 students and still serves a predominantly Black constituency. The campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Allen University Historic District.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Education that is primarily focused on enforcing civil rights laws prohibiting schools from engaging in discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or membership in patriotic youth organizations.
Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.
Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. In contrast to the horrors of European history, John Higham states that in the United States "no decisive event, no deep crisis, no powerful social movement, no great individual is associated primarily with, or significant chiefly because of anti-Semitism." Accordingly, David A. Gerber concludes that antisemitism "has been a distinctly minor feature of the nation's historical development." Historian Britt Tevis argue that, "Handlin and Higham’s ideas remain influential, and many American Jewish historians continue to present antisemitism as largely insignificant, momentary, primarily social."
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.
Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik,, commonly known as Minouche Shafik, is a British-American academic and economist. She served as the president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023, and then as the 20th president of Columbia University from July 2023 to August 2024. She was the first woman to serve as Columbia's president.
Mary Elizabeth Magill is an American legal scholar and academic administrator. She served as the 9th president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2022 to 2023, executive vice president and provost of the University of Virginia from 2019 to 2022, and dean of Stanford Law School from 2012 to 2019.
Alondra Nelson is an American academic, policy advisor, non-profit administrator, and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research center in Princeton, New Jersey. Since March 2023, she has been a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.
Ester Rachel Fuchs is an American academic. She is Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Fuchs studied at Queens College, CUNY, Brown University, and the University of Chicago.
Claudine Gay is an American political scientist and academic administrator who is the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University. Gay's research addresses American political behavior, including voter turnout and politics of race and identity.
Rudy IsraelRochman is a Jewish-Israeli rights activist.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks which seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability. These three notions together represent "three closely linked values" which organizations seek to institutionalize through DEI frameworks. The concepts predate this terminology and other variations include diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), inclusion and diversity (I&D), justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, or diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
Jews have faced antisemitism and discrimination in universities and campuses in the United States, from the founding of universities in the Thirteen Colonies until the present day in varying intensities. From the early 20th century, and until the 1960s, indirect quotas were placed on Jewish admissions, quotas were first placed on Jews by elite universities such Columbia, Harvard and Yale and were prevalent as late as the 1960s in universities such as Stanford. These quotas disappeared in the 1970s.