University of Leeds sued by grad student for failing her over not criticizing Israel in an essay

Grad student files lawsuit against the University of Leeds for discrimination, negligence and victimization after failing her essay on crimes committed by Hamas against Palestinians that did not criticize Israel.

University of Leeds graduate has filed a lawsuit against the university for discrimination, negligence, and victimization after her essay on crimes committed by Hamas against Palestinians was failed because it did not criticize Israel, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Danielle Greyman filed an appeal for external review, and the university regraded and passed essay, agreeing that the original essay should have passed. Nevertheless, the regrading took more than a year, and thereby Greyman could not start her Master’s program at the University of Glasgow.

Greyman claims that her advisors were aware of her choice of topic for the essay, which was Hamas’ crimes against Palestinians. they all agreed that the role of Israel can be excluded from the essay, since the it was strictly about the internal politics of Hamas. However, she asserts that if it wasn’t for the approval of Dr. Simon Prideaux, a professor of sociology at the university, she would have chosen another topic.

Dr. David Hirsh, senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, reviewed the grading and feedback on Greyman’s essay, and claims it is definitely not a fail, and the comments of the grader are not sufficiently justified.

For example, at one point, Greyman referred to Hamas’ using human shields: “a betrayal of the Palestinian people by their government.” The grader wrote in response to this statement: “This ignores the fact that the Israeli state commits acts of violence.”

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) Chief Executive Jonathan Turner believes all lecturers are entitled to hold political opinions and are free to express them on social media, but “they must absolutely leave them outside the door when it comes to marking scripts and when lecturing … in this case it’s quite clear they didn’t.” He thinks that UKLFI has a strong case against the university since either the advice given to Danielle Greyman was negligent or the grading was discriminatory.

Turner identified five lawsuits that UKLFI has been involved in over students facing grade discrimination on their essays on the topic of Israel.

According to Greyman, the University of Leeds accepts the highest number of Jewish students, and their cover up of the incidents is “shockingly unique … they are willfully not seeing the antisemitism.”

A University of Leeds spokesperson said to the media that “The university strenuously denies the accusations of antisemitism, and all proceedings will be fully defended. Further comment would be inappropriate given the matter is subject to legal action.”