Michigan Ross Prof In Social Media Storm For Tearing Down Posters Of Israeli Hostages

Michigan Ross Professor Erik Gordon caught tearing down posters of Israeli hostages

A Michigan Ross School of Business professor has come under fire after a photo was posted online of him taking down posters of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas.

Michigan Ross Professor Erik Gordon: “What is being circulated is completely inaccurate. I removed the flyers from one wall where no flyers are permitted, and put them back up on the bulletin board for flyers in the same building. Let me be utterly clear: I abhor antisemitism. And, by the way, I am Jewish” 

Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor who teaches entrepreneurship, was singled out by a website called StopAntisemitism. The organization posted his image with the following message: “Disgusting – University of Michigan Professor Erik Gordon tears down posters of the kidnapped Israelis, some of them US citizens, being held in Gaza,” the group wrote on X. “Note the despicable smirk on his face.”

The report about Roberts follows similar stories on students who have torn down Israeli hostage posters. At New York University,  a student admitted pulling down the posters after being caught on camera. The student, NYU junior Yazmeen Deyhimi,  confessed in a social media post and blamed her actions on “misplaced anger.”

The post about Michigan’s Gordon went viral after George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley posted it on his blog.

According to Turley, Gordon was not one of the signatories on the recent letter signed by hundreds of faculty and students objecting to the failure of President Santa Ono to mention the plight of Palestinians in her response to the massacre or the “violence of Israel’s seventy-five year occupation.”

ERIK GORDON APPEARS ON NPR’S MARKETPLACE

The incident occurs at a highly intense and emotional time on college campuses that are often bitterly divided. Even the most carefully worded statements on the crisis by business school deans have come under attack.

The Ross School of Business responded to Poets&Quants‘ request for comment with this statement: “We are aware of the social media post you have described but do not have any comment at this time. Please know that we take complaints of antisemitism and harassment very seriously.”

Gordon, in a separate statement, wrote to P&Q: “What is being circulated is completely inaccurate. I removed the flyers from one wall where no flyers are permitted, and put them back up on the bulletin board for flyers in the same building. Let me be utterly clear: I abhor antisemitism. And, by the way, I am Jewish.”

According to his bio, Gordon’s areas of interest are entrepreneurship and technology commercialization, venture capital, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and activism, IPOs, investment banking, financial services, funds, antitrust, securities and financial services regulations, the biomedical industry, transportation, ML, DL, and FinTech.

He also has served on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School. He served on the faculty and as Associate Dean and Director of the Graduate Division of Business & Management (Carey Business School) at Johns Hopkins University, where he taught in the business and medical schools, and at the University of Florida, where he also served as director of the Center for Technology & Science Commercialization Studies and as Director of MBA Programs. He has served as an adviser or co-founder to numerous companies. He is frequently quoted in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, BusinessInsider, AXIOS, and other outlets. He also appears on Marketplace and Marketplace Morning Report (in NPR’s Morning Edition) and Bloomberg Television and Radio, CNBC, NBC, and PBS. His degrees are in economics and law.

DON’T MISS: BUSINESS SCHOOL DEANS FACE CONTROVERSY OVER STATEMENTS ON HAMAS ATTACK ON ISRAEL