Professor’s Criticism of Israel Is Condemned as ‘Hate Speech’

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The chairman of Temple University’s Board of Trustees has condemned the language that Marc Lamont Hill used last week in a United Nations speech criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

In the speech, which marked the International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People, Hill, a tenured professor of media studies and urban education at Temple, used the phrase “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Many critics said those words were code for seeking the end of Israel, referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Hill responded that he had not urged the destruction of Israel in his speech. “My reference to ‘river to the sea’ was not a call to destroy anything or anyone,” he tweeted. “It was a call for justice, both in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza.”

Patrick O’Connor, the Temple board chairman, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Hill’s speech was “lamentable.” “Free speech is one thing,” O’Connor said. “Hate speech is entirely different.”

“I’m not happy. The board’s not happy. The administration’s not happy. People wanted to fire him right away,” O’Connor said. “We’re going to look at what remedies we have.”

He said he had instructed Temple’s legal staff to identify how the university could respond to Hill’s comments, the Inquirer reported.

In a written statement, Richard M. Englert, Temple’s president, wrote that Hill does not represent the university’s views.

Englert also wrote that Temple condemns “racist or incendiary language” and that the university “will take necessary and proper action to protect these values when they are threatened.”

Hill’s contract as a CNN commentator was ended last week after the Anti-Defamation League and other groups objected to his speech.

The controversy echoes a situation in 2014, when the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rescinded a job offer to Steven Salaita, who had made incendiary remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz is breaking-news editor. Follow her on Twitter @FernandaZamudio, or email her at fzamudiosuarez@chronicle.com.