A Jewish University of Cincinnati student filed a complaint with the Provost’s office after a professor invited a guest speaker to their design class, who, according to the student, instead of lecturing on design, gave a pro-Palestine lecture.
According to a complaint filed with the Provost’s office, the guest lecturer – artist Jason Al Ghussein – went on to say: “Has anyone ever heard that the Jews are evil?” followed by his remark, “I have Jewish friends, and some Jews are good, but historically they have caused conflict and tried to take over Palestine.”
The class was History of Design, offered by UC’s prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).
“Our teacher only speaks for 30 minutes [in a normal class], but the guest speaker went for the full hour, and he mostly spoke about history…and then used little tidbits about why he did his art,” said the student who filed the complaint, a sophomore from the Cleveland area. “He didn’t really seem to be an artist. He kind of has just…making this art to support his cause and the history that he was fighting for.”
According to the filed statement, when the student asked their professor about the lecture’s bias, the professor said he had not vetted the guest lecturer and had “only met him online.” The student’s name is being withheld due to a fear of retribution.
Multiple calls were made by Cincy Jewfolk seeking comment from the University of Cincinnati, the School of Design, and the Office of Equal Opportunity. Calls were not returned. It’s not known whether there is any vetting process or standards for guest lecturers at the school.
Al Ghussein is an artist and Palestinian activist known for his murals “Welcome to Jaffa” and “Focus on Love.” He has organized protests of Jewish artists and politicians and organized vigils for Palestine.
According to video clips of Al Ghussein’s talk to the class shared with Cincy Jewfolk, he told a history of his grandfather, Yaqub Al Ghussein, who had been an elected official in Ramla. He used that fact to try and dispute Israel’s standing as the only democracy in the Middle East.
“One thing that was also occurring was this belief that I had grown up with as an American, which is like Israel is our number one ally, they’re the only democracy in Middle East, blah, blah, blah, blah,” Al Ghussein said. “When you see your own grandfather’s election results and a vote count, that whole, like, propaganda bullshit just pops. Like you just no longer believe it anymore.”
After sharing some of the technical details of how he painted “Welcome to Jaffa,” he talked about former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned from his position 10 days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. While he condemned Hamas for the attacks, he also condemned U.S. support for Israel’s response to the attack.
“Again, a lot of people who are educated know the history, study the history, you’re going end up taking the side of the Palestinian people most of time,” Al Ghussein said.
The student who filed the complaint with the school said the history of design class is generally centered around design movements throughout history.
Following Al Ghussein’s talk to the class, the student confronted Davar Azarbeygui, the adjunct professor who arranged the lecture in his class – which was the last class meeting of the fall semester.
“I [told him] that was completely inappropriate; that had nothing to do with design history,” the student said. “He kind of had this look on his face that was a realization that, no, it did not.”
However, according to the report, Azarbeygui told the student, “Don’t take it personally.”
“He said that probably like five times…and then walked away,” the student said. “How could I not? He was literally so biased.”
Azarbeygui did not return an email seeking comment.
The student said that she didn’t think Azarbeygui had any remorse about hosting the lecture while Al Ghussein was speaking.
“People seemed really into it,” they said. “People never look up from their computers during the class, and that teacher knows that. He knows people don’t pay attention in this class. But that specific class, people were paying attention.”
According to an e-mail the student received from the dean of students, the complaint had been sent to the Office of Equal Opportunity “for their review and appropriate follow-up.”
In the 26 months since Hamas’ war with Israel began, the student said this is the first time she’s run into anything like this.
“People were telling me to walk out of class. But I felt like I couldn’t do that,” they said. “I felt like at the end of class, I had to say something. [But] this lecture isn’t just like a lecture I would take as an elective. It’s a lecture with like, everyone in my major, in my [year].
“I just felt like belittled, and like, I don’t know, like I had to, like, say something, and I had to be there.”
As a result of the situation, the student hopes that professors would have to run guest speakers by some sort of authority.
“I’m mostly just hoping that teachers don’t get away with things like this,” the student said. “He should have known [what the speaker would say] to some extent, just because his art was so political.”
The professor needs to be help accountable. This is completely unacceptable. This isn’t a public lecture on Israel and Palestine, nor is it a class on international politics. In those cases such views expressed by a speaker might be acceptable providing there were also speaker providing a rebuttal. But in an art class it is disgraceful. UC needs to take this seriously. UC undoubtedly received state and federal funding, if they wish to remain worth of receiving such funding they need to deal with this swiftly.
There is absolutely no way that professor did not know about this guy’s blatant anti-semitism, or his plan to show it during his presentation.
“…not vetted the lecturer…” bullsh*t.
He has a rating of 2.1 out of 5 on Rate My Professor.