Students at Rutgers University School of Engineering threatened to skip their graduation ceremony over the planned speaker’s history of anti-Israel messages.

According toThe Associated Press, the university responded by removing Rami Elghandour, CEO of biotech company Arcellx and a university alumnus, from the ceremony.

That invitation was rescinded last week by the school’s dean, Alberto Cuitiño, after the university learned that “some graduating students would not attend their graduation ceremony due to concerns about the invited speaker’s social media posts,” a Rutgers spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson declined to specify the offending posts, but confirmed they were focused on Israel.

Elghandour frequently shares news articles and footage of violence in Gaza and the West Bank, along with his own commentary accusing Israel of committing war crimes and upholding a system of apartheid.

A university representative specifically cited to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that an April 20 tweet by Elghandour accuses Israel of genocide and says the Israelis are “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners.”

The tweet was a response to a post from California Democratic Representative Ro Khanna advocating for cutting US aid to Israel, which was itself a response to a post by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that has become a bogeyman in US politics. The unsubstantiated claim that Israel trains dogs to assault prisoners has circulated widely in recent weeks among some pro-Palestinian activists.

“The Rutgers School of Engineering was recently informed that some graduating students would not attend their graduation ceremony due to concerns about the invited speaker’s social media posts, including one that shared an inflammatory claim,” Dory Devlin, a representative for Rutgers University, told JTA in an email. “After discussing these concerns with the speaker, the School of Engineering has rescinded the convocation speaker invitation to Rami Elghandour.”

Elghandour shared his ‘disappointment’ in a statement posted to X.

I love Rutgers and it’s disappointing and heartbreaking to see it abandon its students and its ideals. My full statement.pic.twitter.com/k1cEXlkY2j

Source: The Gateway Pundit