A banner announcing a Jewish speaker at the University of Iowa was vandalized with pro-Palestinian graffiti just hours after being unveiled, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The university’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter set up the banner early Monday morning and found it covered with the message “free Palestine,” as well as an inscription calling the speaker — outspoken Jewish political commentator Ian Haworth — “ignorant,” photos show. The university has “not acknowledged the vandalism at all,” Iowa YAF Chairwoman and National YAF Chair Jasmyn Jordan told the DCNF.
“The fact that people are protesting my criticism of Hamas tells you everything you need to know about the mindless pro-terror radicalism that’s running rampant on college campuses, and gives you an insight into the reality of life for any student who dares to speak their mind in the face of far-Left craziness,” Haworth told the DCNF. “I know Iowa’s YAF chapter won’t be deterred from standing up for the truth and fighting for American and Western values, and I can’t wait to come to their campus on October 7 to speak out against the Nazi-style antisemitism that has returned to American streets thanks to the ‘Free Palestine’ mob who are driven by one thing: Jew hatred.”
Vandalism of banner announcing Jewish Oct. 7 speaker Ian Haworth at the University of Iowa (Photo courtesy of Iowa Young Americans for Freedom)
Haworth’s Oct. 7 speech, titled “Hamas’s war on Jewish, Christian, American and western values,” will fall one year after Hamas’ deadly attack against Israel that left 1,200 dead.
Vandalism of banner announcing Jewish Oct. 7 speaker Ian Haworth at the University of Iowa (Photo courtesy of Iowa Young Americans for Freedom)
Anti-Israel protests initially erupted on college campuses in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and have since reappeared, with Cornell University seeing outbreaks on the very first day of classes this year.
The initial wave of protests in 2023 resulted in numerous arrests, widespread damages and in some cases turned violent. Yet, many students linked to the anti-Israel protests faced little to no discipline.
Vandalism of banner announcing Jewish Oct. 7 speaker Ian Haworth at the University of Iowa (Photo courtesy of Iowa Young Americans for Freedom)
“As a person who testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Free Speech and Antisemitism in November 2023, I find it increasingly frustrating that the university has not responded with urgency or taken decisive action regarding this incident, among many other free speech violations we have endured on campus,” Jordan told the DCNF.
At the November hearing, Jordan said she and her group had been targeted with vandalism in the past and had even been stalked and received death threats. When she tried to raise the issue with university staff, she was told “people are allowed to think, feel and react however they want.”
“The more involved I became in the club the more I discovered that the playing field for freedom of speech on college campuses was not equalized,” Jordan said at the time. “The first time I noticed this was when Iowa YAF hosted Kellyanne Conway as a speaker. In response I was was doxed in a group chat of over 800 students and was falsely labeled as a Nazi, a token, a white supremacist and a bigot. Some individuals even expressed that I made them uncomfortable and feared that I might commit a hate crime against them simply because I’m black and hold conservative principles.”
Israeli military reservist and attorney Ran Bar-Yoshafat was set to speak at the University of California Berkeley in March but was forced to cancel the event and reschedule weeks later after hundreds of protesters disrupted the event, The Los Angeles Times reported. At a separate YAF event at the University of Michigan in November of 2023, protesters interrupted a speech by Josh Hammer condemning Hamas and vandalized the university building with red paint, according to Young America’s Foundation.
Several protesters were arrested in October of 2023 at another speech hosted by the Iowa YAF chapter after protesters blocked traffic in objection to Chloe Cole, a former transgender person who detransitioned, according to Young America’s Foundation.
“As a Jewish student at the University of Iowa, I am disheartened and furious that this banner commemorating the depraved atrocities committed against Israelis of all religious backgrounds on October 7th was criminally defaced with hateful, genocidal rhetoric,” Lily Perlmutter, a student at the university and Iowa YAF member, told the DCNF. “University campuses should be a beacon of free speech. Hate crimes such as this cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”
The University of Iowa did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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