Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

2 Jewish Professors Sue Boston-Area College for ‘Discrimination’

Two Jewish professors have filed federal complaints against their Boston-area college alleging anti-Semitic discrimination.

The educators from Wheelock College, a small liberal arts school, filed the complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week, the Boston Globe reported Sunday.

Eric Silverman and Gail Dines allege in the complaint that Wheelock’s president, Jackie Jenkins-Scott, and other administrators made their work lives miserable after they and four other professors spoke out in a 2014 letter about a lack of Jewish perspective on campus, the newspaper reported. The complaint seeks unspecified damages and attorney’s fees.

Silverman is a professor of American studies and psychology and human development who has taught at Wheelock since 2006. Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies professor and chairwoman of American studies at the college since 1986. Both have tenure.

Wheelock denies the claims, calling them “without merit,” according to the Globe.

The college, with an undergraduate student population of 811, has been struggling financially. Jenkins-Scott is scheduled to leave at the end of the academic semester in May; the university is conducting a search for her successor.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.