Many people are saying that “Jewish Klansman” Lynchin’ Louis Brandeis, the former Supreme Court “Justice” of the United States, was a segregationist who voted time again against civil rights.

But everyone knows I have a great relationship with the Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, disabled people, and Muslims—a tremendous relationship, even—especially Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Martin Luther King, Khizr Khan, Ghazala Khan, Rosa Parks, Sandy Ho, Rebecca Cokley, Patrick Cokley, Bayard Rustin, “Crazy Bernie” Sanders, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ruti Regan, Jennifer Msumba, Sam Crane, Emily Titon, Muhammad Ali, Rhoda Gibson, Lydia Brown, Shain Neumeier, Victoria Rodríguez-Roldan, Liz Weintraub, Keri Gray, Imani Barbarin, Timotheus Gordon, Noor Pervez, Haben Girma, Malcolm X, Eric Garcia, David Perry, T.L. Lewis, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, “Blind Tom” Wiggins, Morénike Giwa-Onaiwu, Gloria Anzaldúa, César Chávez, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, A.O.C., Frederick Douglass (who’s doing a lot of great things, I hear), and the owner of this very blog, who’s a disabled Black Hispanic Jew with a Muslim uncle. (I’m so good that I even have relationships with DEAD people, especially the ones who were segregated from us by people like George Wallace, who is a complete and total shithole, let me tell you. I’m even talking to my Democrat friends because I have a great relationship with everybody, believe me, O.K.?) I know the best people! I make the best apologies, let me tell you.

Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again. Lynchin’ Lou Brandeis had Segregatin’ Woodrow Wilson, many conservative commentators, and the entire Dixiecrat party apparatus behind him—but this Trojan horse is no match for DONALD J. TRUMP.

A new poll came out, saying that the top replacement for Lightweight Choker Lynchin’ Louis Brandeis (who is a complete and total fraud, let me tell you) was DONALD J. TRUMP. I won, by a lot! (Not “alot.” Even I know that’s two words, and I almost failed the third grade!) As the presumptuous nominee, I have many plans to make “Brandeis”—now TRUMP® UNIVERSITY®—great again! I’m a true prophet. After all, after I was duly elected YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT™, I said that I was going to bring back Trump® University®. After all, I NEVER settle.

Of course, I have a lot of great plans for the new and improved Trump University, let me tell you.

• Donald J. Trump is calling for a complete and total shutdown on segregationists putting their names on colleges. I may have called countries in Africa and the Caribbean “shithole countries,” but even I disavowed the Ku Klux Klan and the protesters marching in my name last year.
• We’re gonna build up our psychology department. I know a great guy, Paul McHugh, who knows how to deal with the Galactic Transsexual Empire (he’s got some real galaxy-brain takes, O.K.?) and the new wave of magical multiples (A.K.A. “dissociative identity disorder”) with their names, worlds, powers, maps, parents, birthdates, and Japanese action figures living in their head. (Crazy stuff, let me tell you.) We’re gonna replace them with good neuropsychologists who use the gold standard: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale! My buddy Roy Cohn is a fan, let me tell you, O.K.? For the rest of us, there’s the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading. I got 117 on that, which is almost genius! After all, it only goes up to 119, just like Psalm 119. Maybe that test is for Christians. I have a great relationship with the Christians. After all, I’m a Christian myself, a rock-ribbed Presbyterian. I read Two Corinthians every night.
• I don’t know anything about David Duke, but I’ve got my own selection for faculty: ME! After all, I know more than the generals do. I’m tough and smart, O.K.? I’m a very stable genius, very intelligent, let me tell you. I can be the faculty and staff. After all, I’m Donald J. Trump, and I have great genes. Well, maybe no. We can also invite Ivanka to run the International Business School. She makes a lot of money dealing against China, let me tell you. And I have a great relationship with the Jews, too. That’s why I’m going to invite Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner to join the faculty senate.
• We’ll build up the linguistics department and make sure it’s descriptive, okay? They’ll describe how great I am all the time and conduct analyses of my great grammar, let me tell you. I have the best grammar. I know words. I have the best words. That’s why they call me Trump, since my grammar trumps all the rest, and you can hear the trumpet every time you hear my name. (Or is it a drumbeat? The entomologists haven’t decided where my name comes from, but it’s not Drumpf anymore, let me tell you, no matter what Dopey John Oliver says.) That’s why I’m a very stable genius. If you don’t agree with me, that’s very unfair. Prescriptivism? That’s for the Failing New York Times and the Amazon Washington Post, which are ALWAYS against YOUR FAVORITE DULY-ELECTED “UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT™,” DONALD J. TRUMP! (They love me in Alabama, which was right to vote for me. Come on, I’m an improvement over Lil’ Georgie Wallace, O.K.? I’ll rig it good.)

• If they keep Lynchin’ Lou’s name on this school, Brandeis University Press might republish that old Nazi classic, Neues Volk. Hitler got his ideas from the segregationists! I’m not even a reading man, and I know a book came out a few years back called Hitler’s American Model! I prefer my version: “Steuerzahler Zuerst,” or Taxpayers First! I make the best budgets, lemme tell you. Let’s talk financials.

• Of course, the university president will be ME, YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT™, DONALD J. TRUMP! Stop the steal! Get rid of Ron Liebowitz—a guy I don’t even know, maybe he’s a good person, I don’t know, I’ll have to look into it—and replace him with me! Forget about Lyin’ Joe Bidet. The REAL problem is Crooked Lynchin’ Louis Brandeis, who may be dead, but he’s a loser anyway.
• If you let me run this college I’m gonna call up my buddy Vladimir in Russia and ask him politely to stop the war in the Ukraine. Let them keep their country. Russia’s great enough already, O.K.? I like war, in a certain kind of way, but even I’m sick of this Russia, Russia, Russia business. Maybe if Vladimir listens to me, he can get me those 33,000 missing emails that Crooked Hillary didn’t release back in 2016! (Hell, I’d take Crooked Hillary over Lynchin’ Lou! At least she’s not into that Klan shit! The real superpredator is Lynchin’ Louis Brandeis, who is a complete and total fraud on the American public!)
• We’ll get special Trump–Pence cement mixers to do work at the physical plant!

• On Cinco De Mayo, I will make an official proclamation that I love Hispanics! I’ll even bring out my special taco bowls.

• I have a great relationship with everyone, even the Muslims. Maybe I could sit down with the Christians, Muslims, and Jews and set up a peace accord. I was even able to start talking to Kim Jong Un, so if I can talk to him, I can talk to the people in Israel and Palestine. Many people are saying that we should set up a new secular state and call it the State of Jerusalem. It’s gonna be great, lemme tell you, O.K.? It’ll be all right to be a Jew there. (See, even I know that “all right” is two separate words, and Lyin’ Lynchin’ Racist Louis “Jewish Klansman” Brandeis, who is a total hoax on the American public, didn’t know that. Sad! (Seriously? Jewish Klansman doesn’t even sound catchy!) He’s a loser who can’t spell because he thinks Alabama was right for lynching and segregating Black people. And I have a TREMENDOUS relationship with the Blacks!) It’ll be all right to be a Muslim. And yeah, it’ll be O.K. to be a Christian or even one of those Baha Men. It’ll be fine as long as you’re nice, because I’m a strong believer in religion. (Problem with Lynchin’ Louis was that he wasn’t nice. And there was collusion and obstruction—by keeping Black people and Muslims down through segregation. VERY SAD!)

• We’re gonna build a great, great wall around the university to keep the segregationists out. After all, if they like segregation so much, we’re gonna segregate them from the greatest university in the country, even the world! You can get a real world class college education at Trump University. We’re gonna be bigger than Harvard, Oxford, Oral Roberts, Yale, Princeton, Eaton, Davis, Berkeley, AND U.T. Austin PUT TOGETHER! (Seriously, it’s gonna be huge. Nobody makes colleges better than Donald J. Trump.)

See, Eaton isn’t even a real college! It’s a high school (not a “highschool,” which is probably where Lynchin’ Lou went)! And it’s in the U.K. (Britain), so you know it’s no good. But Trump University will be great.

• We will teach real American English at Trump University. None of this British shit, because the U.K. is a shithole country. Every country other than America is a shithole country, lemme tell you. After the Supreme Court made the Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board rulings (after Lynchin’ Louis died, of course), this country stopped being a shithole, because we got rid of the segregationists.

America is the best Country in the Nation, see?

• We’re gonna get back to basics and teach readin’, ritin’, and ’rithmetic. People don’t even remember the order of operations anymore. How can you have forgotten “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”? Or that all right is two separate words? Or that there are no such words as aswell, eachother, ofcourse, everytime, infact, incase, or infront? And at least I know that “at least” is two separate words, okay? Ah, well. Jesus loves you “anyways,” even if you can’t spell. (I can spell with the best of them, and my IQ is 160—I can confirm that on the Wechsler IQ test. Of course it was a Wechsler, since it’s the “gold standard,” if you know what I mean. Ron Paul has a tremendous relationship with the IQ people, if you know what I mean.)

• There is no such word as aswell! I’m not kidding. And “alright”? That’s a racist dogwhistle. Many well-known lexicographers have been in communication with me. I hear that it’s code for “I’ll rig it,” and it’s a reference to lynching. Or it means “Alabama was right.” They come up with funny things in Alabama, you know. Most of the time, it just means you can’t spell (maybe that’s why we keep seeing it at Brandeis—but who knows?), but ignorance of the law is no excuse. But even Alabama voted against Roy Moore, the guy who worships the Ten Commandments without actually following them. Come on. Pick me, not Roy Moore or George Wallace, or Lynchin’ Lou Brandeis, who was a total hoax on the Jewish public. That’s right, Lynchin’ Lou is “alright.” That’s why a lot of white Jews at Brandeis seem constitutionally unable to spell “all right” the standard way. SAD! You’re a college! And yeah, Manischewitz matzos and wine taste bad, but they’re still kosher, and it’s not O.K. to mock kosher, since that means “good” and “acceptable.” If you mock goodness, it’s BAD! Segregation is all rigged to keep white Gentiles (yeah, they don’t like Jews, not even Lynchin’ Lou, especially his skinhead “friends” in the U.K.) in power, and I have a great relationship with the Blacks! Also, Al Wright? Sounds like a used-car salesman!

• (Serious talk: “Alright” is a racist and antisemitic slur. It’s not cutesy slang. It’s a slur against Black people and Jews, possibly invented several times over by segregationists, Klansmen, antisemites, and other bigots who wanted to veil their racism and antisemitism—a kind of linguistic virus that started spreading from several directions. That’s why it’s so common in punk rock—they like to offend people on purpose. It’s why descriptive linguists love defending it. Since descriptivists don’t care about others’ feelings, they will come up with historical arguments to defend language that offends women, people of colour, Jews, Muslims, and other marginalised people.
  
  The “A-word” is mostly racist in the US and antisemitic in the UK, but it’s offensive either way. That’s why I’ve been hammering on it for two years—I’ve been working with some of the country’s top lexicographers, who know where words come from and how people use them. That’s why, even though this “one-word travesty” appears frequently outside edited writing, dictionaries insist on spelling it as two separate words regardless. Because it’s all right to be Black. It’s all right to be a Black Jew. And it’s NOT all right to be a shitty segregationist. All right is two words. No exceptions. —The Management)
• We’re gonna beef up the German-education department. (Did you know that Wechsler is German for “money changer”? Is that why they made up the Wechsler test, to see who’d be the best accountants? I like it when guys with funny hats count my money. After all, I’m from Queens. And my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars, so I like the Wechslers—or as the fancy ones call themselves, Wexlers.)
• And for higher mathematics, we’re gonna talk a lot about numbers, since I love numbers. Many people are saying I’m the best with numbers. I know the best numbers, the ones that the radical clerical cabals don’t even teach you in the madrassas.
• We’re gonna add an Ayn Rand Research Institute. The libertarians like me, and I like the libertarians. That’s why so many of them voted for me even though they support “small government.” I have no problem with the size of my government, believe me. I have no problem there.
• I’m not much of a reader, but I’m still gonna assign my entire literary “corpus” to every student. We can start with my personal Bible—The Art of the Deal, written by Tony Schwartz and Donald J. Trump. (But mostly me, of course.)

• We’re even gonna rename the language AMERICAN, cuz we’re patriotic Americans who love Noah Webster (peace be upon him), who’s almost right up there with Mohammad! But not quite, because I have a great relationship with the Muslims. A tremendous religion! In fact, we’re gonna set up a new Center for Islamic Studies, with a specific focus on the Islamicate world before guys like Excruciating Tom Torquemada took over. We’ve got a great Muslim family over there who can help us get that started. Who needs the Islamic State when we’ve got great Muslims right here in the United States?
• Replace that Usdan cafeteria with something classier: the Trump Tower Grill™, featuring the revival of the World’s Greatest Steaks™, TRUMP STEAKS®! (Maybe I’ll start an entire chain, the United Steaks of America! I’ve got a lot of key steak-holders on retainer, let me tell you. Maybe I’ll even bring Lyin’ Ted Cruz on board, since he’d look good wielding a stake against nonbelievers.)
• I’ll fill my cabinet with villains. Skeletor, Darth Vader, Maleficent, Daleks, and the Joker are all an improvement over Lynchin’ Lou! After all, they’re not real, right?

• “White Only”? Nah, we like Americans of all colors. Let’s do “Americans Only” instead! That’s an improvement over what Lynchin’, Lyin’, Cheatin’ Racist Lou did.

That’s what Lynchin’ Lou would’ve wanted. But I know better than that, because I’ve got a tremendous relationship with everybody, even Democrat Justice Ruth Bader “R.G.B.” Ginsburg. She may have made a few bad rulings, but she’s still way better than Lynchin’ Lou! I’d rather go to CROOKED HILLARY CLINTON University if I weren’t going to take it over myself, I can tell you that, folks.

• We will ALWAYS capitalize the word “Country” at Trump University. Lynchin’ Lou, on the other hand, is a country hick who just capitalizes the word Lynch because he was a racist shithead.
• I have a great relationship with the Jews. A little bird told me that having a college named after Lynchin’ Lou Brandeis, whose ideas helped inspire the Nazi Party, is like serving ham at a kosher deli. Why would you put a hechsher on THAT? SAD!!!!!
• We’re going to spell HealthCare with a capital C in the middle because I like capital C for Capitalism, Country, and Care! CCC is much better than KKK (or Council of “Conservative” Citizens). I’m a Conservative, but those guys are Klansmen!

If I’m less of an embarrassment than Lynchin’ Louis “KKK” Brandeis, imagine how many people are going to want to hand in their diplomas to have them reprinted with “Proud Alumnus of Donald J. Trump University College.” That’s the best present I could ever get after I had the White House very unfairly stolen from me! (If you don’t listen to this, I hear that the neo-Nazis are going to try to make Hitler University again, and even the worst Jewish segregationists aren’t gonna stand for THAT!)

Seriously, even Nigel “Mr. Brexit” Farage is better than that guy, let me tell you.

And I’m going to say this loud and clear for the people in the back: Lyin’ Crooked Loser Lynchin’ Louis Brandeis was a segregationist. Very sad! And it will be very sad if the university that bears his name doesn’t get its act together. He may be James Crow, Esq., but it’s the same old Jim Crow that the Blacks—who I have a tremendous relationship with, and I don’t mean Don Black, either—know and hate. Take that invisible “White Only” sign off. Pull off that white hood, or they’re gonna make another movie called “Jewish Klansman” next. I hear Spike Lee is casting for the movie. Do the all-right thing, not the wrong thing.

MAKE BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY GREAT AGAIN! But you can only do that if you take Lynchin’ Loser Lou’s name off. Segregation then, segregation yesterday, segregation NEVER AGAIN! Or our relationship with the Federal Government, which issues grants to this university, will be at an all-time and very dangerous low!

If Ambivalent Ron Liebowitz, who presides over a college who has the name of Lynchin’ Lou Brandeis on it, doesn’t do his job, he’s gonna hear the best words ever: YOU’RE FIRED!

Serious talk, though: it’s time to make things all right, both for me and everyone else who has suffered from racial and religious discrimination at Brandeis. No one is above the law, not even a dead segregationist judge. All right is two words—and it’s all right to practise whatever religion you want as long as you do the best you can with what you have. Black lives matter because Black people matter. And in a country built on stolen land, it’s evil to insult immigrants who’ve worked hard to come here. Even if people fuck up, you love them anyway—but it’s still their responsibility to make amends. It’s time for Brandeis University to make reparations. Georgetown has already set that plan in motion.

To President Liebowitz: Let’s talk about next steps, preferably in person. Since I’m an alumnus and former staff member, you know how to reach me. After all, I’m always getting magazines from Heller and Brandeis.

And to everyone else who’s supported me throughout my journey, whether I’ve mentioned you or not: To life. L’chaim! I love you all.

—Finn M. Gardiner, 11 May 2022

(P.S. I feel comfortable sharing this now, but my Hebrew name is Moishe.)

As I said in my previous open letter, the namesake of Brandeis University, Louis Brandeis, was a segregationist appointed by the Klan-loving President Woodrow Wilson. He was, in effect, the Jewish George Wallace, the notorious segregationist governor of Alabama who stood in front of the University of Alabama’s doors to block Black students from entering. Let’s say that Brandeis became honest about its reputation and renamed itself George Wallace University.

They even have a slogan ready-made: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Their social media would post this slogan every day until it sunk in. Let’s talk about what Wallace University might look like:

• They’d hold a dedicated ribbon-cutting ceremony, where they’d invite just the white people: the League of the South, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly known as the White Citizens’ Council), and the John Birch Society.
• Klansmen would march up and down the campus, shouting “The South will rise again, even up North!”
• David Duke would become the university’s new chancellor—“president” is too democratic, and “chancellor” adds that nice Hitlerian touch, even though they’re patriotic Americans, thank you very much.
• The Wallace administrators would replace all the American flags with Confederate ones.
• Black Lives Matter? Even Blue Lives Matter is too hippie-dippy for Wallace University. Instead, they’ll invite White Lives Matter every year to lecture students about race in America.
• Wallace would change the college mascot to the Fightin’ Jim Crows.
• The Wallace administration would allow the World Church of the Creator to build a physical chapel on the premises.
• They’d open up new departments and schools at Wallace University: the Cecil Rhodes School for Boer and Apartheid Studies, the Francis Galton School for Eugenic Studies, the Strom Thurmond Institute for Negroid Studies, the Robert E. Lee Center for Confederate Studies, the Stonewall Jackson Military Academy, the Jefferson Davis School of Secessionist Studies, the Richard Spencer Agronomical Institute, the Adolf Hitler Institute for Judaic Studies, the Torquemada Center for Hispanic Renewal (to embarrass the Catholics and piss off both Jews and Muslims), the Josef Mengele School of Medicine, and the James Fields Driving School. They might even add the Roy Moore School of Law if they get enough support.
• The campus would be full of monuments to great white leaders, including Trent Lott, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson. Sorry, even Louis Brandeis doesn’t qualify—he’s Jewish, after all, and the Klan doesn’t take kindly to Jews, even ones who uphold their noxious policies on the Supreme Court.
• Incoming classes would have mandatory screenings of Birth of a Nation and Song of the South.
• Campus Hillel? Try a chapter of Identity Evropa instead. Other campus clubs would include the Young Klansmen’s Organization, Sons of the Confederacy, and Youth for a White Civilization.
• Women would no longer be admitted, since their job is to stay barefoot, illiterate, and pregnant while the men fight to defend their sovereignty.
• Since Jews would no longer be admitted to the college, Wallace University would start campaigns to recruit the children of evangelical homeschoolers, neo-Nazis, Confederate reenactors, and other dyed-in-the-wool racists.
• They’d replace the physical plant with a brand-new physical plantation for all the Black students, staff, and faculty who used to be employed there. After all, they’re neo-Confederates and segregationists, not Nazis.
• Wallace University would receive funding from old Southern plantation families, most of which have kept their wealth since Reconstruction. Maybe Richard Spencer might chip in—you never know, right? If they play their cards right, they could attract Mel Gibson.
• The Rose Art Museum would buy out the collection of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, though they’d rename the permanent exhibit to “Depictions of Negroids in Southern Art and Culture.”
• They’d fill the faculty with sympathetic “scholars,” including Jared Taylor, Don Black, Richard Lynn, Peter Brimelow, Jeff Sessions, Charles “Bell Curve” Murray, Kent Hovind, David Barton, and Kevin MacDonald.
• They’d start working with VDare, American Renaissance, and Occidental Quarterly.
• Required textbooks for all Wallace University freshmen would include Democracy: The God That Failed, The South Was Right, and The Bell Curve. They can replace critical race theory with The Culture of Critique.
• If the Wallace communications department gets its act together, they might even invite a few “mainstream” evangelicals along, too. In that case, we can add the Jerry Falwell Bible College, the new headquarters of the 700 Club, the Bob Jones School of Education, and the James Dobson Institute for Traditional Families.
• Instead of Purim celebrations, Wallace students would get together and hold ritual cross-burnings and Klanbakes instead. Hamantaschen? Try barbecue pork instead.

It’s time for Brandeis University to consider changing its name. Louis Brandeis may have been the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court, but his support of segregation should condemn him to ignominy. His memory may be a blessing to white Jews who think only about their liberation, but it is a burden for everyone else affiliated with the university, including Jews of colour, Black people, and Muslims—and people against racial and religious tolerance, regardless of their race, religion, or ethnic background. I humbly suggest that Brandeis’s administrators consider a new name to bring it into the twenty-first century.

Here’s a suggestion: how about replacing Louis Brandeis with Ruth Bader Ginsburg? She’s the first Jewish woman appointed to the Supreme Court. Although her rulings haven’t been perfect—for example, she stood with the unjust majority in a case involving Indigenous tribal sovereignty—she’s still a vast improvement over Louis Brandeis. In later rulings, Ginsburg voted to uphold Native Americans’ rights. Even if she did the wrong thing in the Oneida Nation ruling, she voted the right way when other matters involving tribal sovereignty came before the Court.

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg University” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? In a later letter, I’ll propose a tentative plan of action.

Since I wrote my first open letter to my friends, colleagues, and allies, I’ve done more research about the history of Brandeis University, my graduate-school alma mater and former employer of five years. Brandeis prides itself as a college that was founded on principles of social justice and inclusion—when it was founded, Jews were often excluded from Ivy League colleges like Harvard—but this is false advertising that whitewashes the history of its namesake. Judge Louis Brandeis was the first Jew named to the Supreme Court. Since Jews have been historically oppressed, this is a great achievement indeed. Unfortunately, Louis Brandeis was appointed by Woodrow Wilson, a notoriously anti-Black segregationist who helped fuel the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, and other acts of violence against Black Americans, Jews, Catholics, Latinos, and other racial and religious minorities. Brandeis himself was a racist Islamophobe who believed that Black people and Muslims did not have the same right as white people or Jews. In short, he was a Jewish white supremacist—a Jew who put his racial background over the rights of other people, including Black people and Muslims. I am a Black Sephardic Jew, so it is bitterly ironic that I hold a master’s degree from Brandeis and was an employee there for five years. Also, I’m proud to know a lot of kind, honest, hard-working Muslims who try to do the right thing whenever they can. Although Brandeis was Jewish, those Muslims showed more humanity toward others than Louis Brandeis ever did. By denying the rights and humanity of Black people and Muslims, Louis Brandeis bore false witness against us. I am not a Muslim myself, but I stand in solidarity with other religious minorities who have experienced cruelty and persecution at the hands of narrow-minded leaders who treat their ancestry as though it were God Himself. For religious Jews, this is a form of idolatry. And even outside a religious context, this is hateful bigotry that no human being, regardless of background, deserves to endure.

Since the founding of Brandeis University, there have been legitimate efforts on campus to redress the legitimate grievances that Muslims, Black people, Indigenous Americans, and others have held against both the university and its namesake. The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, for example, employs several people who are dedicated to dismantling years of oppression and bringing us out of the darkness of segregation into the light of integration. In the Sixties, Gunnar and Rosemary Dybwad worked to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities had the right to live, work, and participate in the community alongside their nondisabled counterparts. A Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Gunnar Dybwad knew acutely what it meant to belong to a persecuted minority. Both Dybwads worked to close down the Fernald State School, an institution just down the road from Brandeis. And when I was working at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy, which was established at Heller in 2007, I worked alongside people of all races, ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds to make the world more inclusive for people with disabilities. Monika Mitra, the director of the Lurie Institute, has taken active efforts to ensure that the staff and faculty reflect our country’s diversifying population. There’s one incident that shows Monika’s kind, generous nature. When I, a senior staff member, needed to talk with her about something, she was already in a conversation with Francisca, one of the contracted janitors. Instead of throwing Francisca out to talk to me, she made me wait so that she could finish talking to Francisca. I judge people not just how they treat their bosses and colleagues, but how they treat maids, janitors, service workers, and others in “lowly” jobs. I am a descendant of Brahmins, or upper-caste Indians. Far too many of my counterparts misused their status to declare Dalits—people in undesirable occupations—“untouchable.” Monika, who is an Indian immigrant with a PhD and significant social capital, treated Francisca as an equal. She did the right thing. Although I am furious at Brandeis University’s administration for failing to protect me, these grievances do not extend to Monika, who has been nothing but kind and fair to me, both as a faculty adviser and an employer. Instead, I am furious at the colleague whose racism and Islamophobia drove a wedge between Black people, Jews, white people, and Muslims.

As a disabled Black Jew, I’m proud to have worked and studied at the Heller School—or I would be if it weren’t still connected with Brandeis and its racist past. People familiar with Brandeis’s support of racial and religious segregation are attracted to the campus since the administration often protects those views from criticism. Last year, Mel Ptacek started working at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. Mel claimed to be a Berkeley-educated historian, but she studied marketing and business administration at Kansas State University and Brandeis, and she lists a location near Dallas in one of her LinkedIn profiles. Mel is the colleague I mentioned in my previous open letter, though I’d refrained from mentioning her by name until I’d gotten enough facts.

I don’t know what Mel’s religious affiliation is, but it’s common for hucksters to claim to be historians. This is especially common among white nationalists and radical Christians. For example, David Barton, a Texan evangelist affiliated with Ted Cruz and the state Republican Party, claims to be a historian but has no credentials at all—he studied religious education at Oral Roberts “University.” He founded WallBuilders, a radical Christian organisation that claims to uncover America’s “forgotten history.” My father is a hardcore evangelical Christian who was involved in the homeschool movement from the late nineties. As a forced convert to evangelicalism, I read a lot of fundamentalist works, including those of Richard “Little Bear” Wheeler, Doug Phillips, and Kent Hovind. Like David Barton, these men lied about history, misrepresented their credentials, and slandered anyone who wasn’t a “true Christian.” These people give Christians a bad name.

Again, I don’t know Mel’s religious beliefs, but it’s been excruciating trying to work with her. Since she arrived, Mel has been sabotaging my work and isolating me from my colleagues, possibly to try to get information about my friend and their family. Regardless of Mel’s intent, however, she misrepresented herself and harassed me out of a job. If she is a Christian, I don’t think that Jesus would approve of her actions. Jesus called his followers to love one another, but this isn’t loving; it’s hateful and dishonest.

My direct supervisor didn’t know this about Mel Ptacek, so she kept defending her when I tried to explain that Mel wasn’t who she said she was. Mel groomed my boss gradually over the year, flattering her and isolating me from the rest of my colleagues, all of whom are white women. But Mel’s grooming of my boss is no excuse, since a court of law could construe this as a case of constructive discharge—and of criminal fraud. Litigation is a messy business and is therefore best avoided. I’d rather settle, since this ordeal has cost me my mental health, my source of income, my health insurance, and my human dignity. If Brandeis wants to show that it has changed, it can start by paying reparations for the damage it has done to my livelihood by providing employment to a racist, disingenuous fraudster.