December 16, 2020
Via Email : ( rdaniels@jhu.edu ; yarkony@jhu.edu )
Ronald J. Daniels
President
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St., 242 Garland Hall
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
David Yarkony, Ph.D.
Chair and D. Mead Johnson Professor of Chemistry
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St., Remsen 310
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Dear President Daniels and Professor Yarkony,
We write on behalf of the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department and the StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism, divisions of StandWithUs, an international, non-profit education organization supporting Israel and combating antisemitism. We write to follow up on our letter of December 3, 2020 (see attached), in which we alerted you to [name redacted], a graduate researcher and teaching assistant in Johns Hopkins University’s chemistry department. [Redacted] allegedly posted a series of racist and antisemitic statements on a Twitter account indicating an intent to penalize and discriminate against all Jewish, Israeli and Zionist students in violation of school policies and federal laws, such as Title VI.
We write once again to ask that your administration immediately investigate whether [redacted] has violated applicable rules, laws, and provisions, and if so, to immediately take corrective action. This is a matter of urgency: the semester ends on December 23 and [Redacted] will likely begin grading students at that time. Likewise, to the extent possible under the law, we request that you provide some transparency regarding this investigation to assure that no student has previously suffered or will suffer academic harm due to unlawful discrimination on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, race or religion by one of your instructors.
We would appreciate a substantive response by Wednesday, December 23, 2020. In the absence of such response, which would have demonstrated that your administration is treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves, we believe it will be necessary and appropriate to share this matter of great concern with the broader community.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Roz Rothstein
CEO and Co-Founder
StandWithUs
Yael Lerman
Director
StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department
Carly Gammill
Director
StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism
Cc:
Sunil Kumar, Ph.D
Provost
provost@jhu.edu
Paul Pineau
Vice President and General Counsel
paulpineau@jhu.edu
