Harvard Professor Gets Anti-Semitic Postcard in the Mail
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Sanford Levinson, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, on Monday received a postcard full of anti-Semitic threats that referenced President-elect Donald Trump, according to reports in the Dallas Morning News and Boston Globe.
“Hey Sandy, you just got your kike ass kicked… We are gonna drain the swamp at Harvard Law School, Juden Raus,” the letter read, invoking the Trump slogan “drain the swamp” and the Nazi-era phrase “Jews out.”
Levinson, who holds a permanent appointment at the University of Texas in Austin, teaches constitutional law and has written articles about his field for the popular press.
He spoke out about the letter to the Boston Globe. “It certainly is as hostile as it could be. But I don’t know what to make of it,” he told the newspaper, noting that the letter appeared to have been mailed from the United Kingdom.
Levinson, who reported the incident to Harvard administration, linked the episode to Trump’s electoral victory, which has coincided with a spike in hate crimes.
“This is a level of anti-Semitic hostility that I have not seen before,” he said to the Globe. “I see it as a very regrettable data point about the extent to which Donald Trump — intentionally or not — has liberated a kind of discourse we haven’t seen in a long, long time.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
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