We are extremely disappointed that the coordinators of the Virginia Tech Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) Research Symposium and Exposition have chosen to host a known antisemite, Steven Salaita, as the keynote speaker for their event on March 23, 2022. 

Steven Salaita has a long history of targeting the Jewish community with harmful and antisemitic statements. Providing Steven Salaita with a platform to speak goes against Virginia Tech’s values and creates an environment in which Jewish students are likely to feel unwelcome and unsafe on campus.

Steven Salaita has a track record of making harmful, dangerous, and antisemitic statements, ranging from antisemitic blood libels to defending Hamas’s actions of targeting civilians. He is an avid supporter of a convicted terrorist, Rasmeah Odeh, who was convicted in 1970 for bombing a grocery store in Jerusalem, killing two college students, and was arrested in another attempted bombing of the British Consulate. Salaita was denied a tenured position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign because of the antisemitic posts and comments and had to change careers because no university would hire him.

Virginia Tech must take action to protect Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus that feel threatened by Salaita’s antisemitic actions. We ask that Virginia Tech leaders uphold the university’s motto of “Ut Prosim: That I May Serve”, reaffirm their opposition to giving known antisemites a platform, and condemn the GPSS Research Symposium and Exposition coordinator’s decision to bring Salaita as a keynote speaker due to his antisemitic statements.

We ask that the public and Virginia Tech community sign the petition below to stand in solidarity against antisemitism and to urge Virginia Tech to condemn Salaita’s public antisemitic actions.