Just learned that Harry’s Place is down. Engage explains that Harry’s Place exposed Jenna Delich, a lecturer at Sheffield College, as well as the UK’s University and College Union (UCU). The UCU represents higher education lecturers, some of who have made much noise about boycotting Israeli academics in the past.
Harry’s Place recently publicized that Delich — who continues to call for such a boycott — posted a link to David Duke’s web site on a UCU activist list. (No link here. Duke doesn’t deserve any traffic from Backspin.) Engage explains:
Jenna Delich’s emails on the activist list have already been subject to two formal complaints to the union. The UCU process judged that the evidence was not persuasive. Now the UCU is circulating links to David Duke’s website on behalf of Delich.
Engage further explains how the blog was taken down:
This follows the advice circulated by the UCU on the activists’ list from Mike Cushman, who is one of the official leaders of the boycott campaign (BRICUP) within the union. He told Jenna Delich that he thought Harry’s Place had “potentially libelled” her and he advised her to “contact hurryupharry’s ISP”. One can only assume that he hoped that Harry’s Place would be silenced in this way.
Thanks to the wonders of RSS feeds, Amused Cynicism was able to post Harry’s last entry.
The Jerusalem Post has more background on the UCU controversy.
I’m confident Harry’s Place will be back online soon. The UCU’s moral blindness will only be a source of embarrassment for itself while uniting Jewish students. So much for the idea that pro-Israel groups silence dissent.
UPDATE Aug. 27: Further updated developments and links at Modernity Blog.
UPDATE Aug 27: Good news — Harry’s Place is back up. That being the case, it’s worth seeing the post that started all the furor.
