Jewish New School Students Petition Against John Galliano

John Galliano Image by Getty Images

By Anne Cohen April 24, 2013

The New School’s Jewish Student Union has put out a petition protesting John Galliano’s teaching appointment at the Parsons School of Design.

“We do not want money from our tuition going to this kind of person. We feel like we’ve been slapped in the face by our school. There should be no room for this kind of person as a staff member on the faculty at Parsons,” the petition statement reads.

“Imagine if the school were hiring a person who publicly voiced support for the KKK — there would likely be backlash because it’s not right to have someone like that teaching at a school. But because this is someone who has made anti-Semitic remarks, people are willing to look the other way. This is unacceptable.”

The Parsons School of Design announced on Monday that John Galliano would be teaching a 3-day design workshop called “Show Me Emotion.”

“It doesn’t matter if its for three months or three days,” the statement added, “hiring someone who has made such horrific comments shows that the school values Galliano over their entire Jewish student body.”

Galliano was fired from Dior in 2011 after he was caught on video making anti-Semitic remarks in a Paris cafe. The New School JSU included the video in its petition (see it below).

The JSU calls on students and alumni to sign the petition and write an email to David Van Zandt, the president of the The New School, and Joel Towers, the dean of Parsons, calling for Galliano’s resignation. So far, 110 people have signed.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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