Professor's letter on job to Israeli starts probe

LONDON -- Oxford University is investigating a professor who rejected an Israeli student's job application because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Andrew Wilkie, the Nuffield professor of pathology at Pembroke College, could face disciplinary action if he is found to have violated the university's anti-discrimination rules while turning down the student's request to work in his college laboratory.

In an e-mail that Wilkie sent to the student, Amit Duvshani, on June 23, rejecting his application, the geneticist said:

"I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they wish to live in their own country.

"I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only U.K. scientist with these views, but I'm sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around."

Three years of military service is compulsory in Israel.

Duvshani, 26, who is completing his master's degree in molecular biology at the University of Tel Aviv, wasn't immediately available for comment Wednesday.

But The Sunday Telegraph quoted him as saying he was appalled by his treatment.

"I did not expect it from a British professor. I sent similar applications all around Europe and did not have another response like that. Science and politics should be separate. This is discrimination," Duvshani was quoted as saying.

Wilkie issued an apology after his e-mail was forwarded to scientists in other countries, leading to letters of complaint to him and to Oxford.

"I recognize and apologize for any distress caused by my e-mail of 23 June and the wholly inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document," he said in a note posted on Oxford's Web site.

"I was not speaking on behalf of Oxford University or any of its constituent parts. I entirely accept the University of Oxford's Equal Opportunities and Race Equality policies."

Wilkie was not immediately available for comment Wednesday at the university, where most professors were on summer vacation, or at his residence.

In its statement on the Web site, the university said: "Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of university life, but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or indirectly."

It said a report on the internal investigation would be sent to the university's vice chancellor this week.

A university spokeswoman refused to discuss the case Wednesday.

It wasn't the first such incident involving British academics.

Last year, Mona Baker, a linguist at the University of Manchester's Institute of Science and Technology, fired two Israeli linguists from the boards of two journals. An investigation concluded that Baker, an Egyptian who has lived in Britain for many years, had not broken any university rules because she owned the journals.

In May, Britain's Association of University Teachers rejected a proposal for universities to sever all ties with Israeli academic institutions in protest of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Two-thirds of the 200 delegates at the association's annual conference rejected the proposal put forward by a lecturer who said that just as Britain had boycotted South Africa it should impose one on Israel, "today's apartheid regime."