San Jose State University placed a professor on administrative leave after he got into a physical altercation with a student during a pro-Palestine protest, according to an email from the school's president and a video of the incident.
History teacher Jonathan Roth was placed on leave Tuesday, a day after he grabbed and twisted a student's arm when she tried to stop him from recording protesters on his phone, according to video of the incident reviewed by The Times.
“Fortunately, no serious physical injuries were reported,” San Jose State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson wrote in a memo to the school community. “So far no police charges have been filed. “The circumstances of Monday’s incident, which resulted in the guest speaker and students being removed from the classroom, are still under investigation.”
Roth did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident is the latest involving protests and violence on university campuses over the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7.
Members of the group Students for Justice in Palestine protested on February 19 outside a classroom in Sweeney Hall where a guest lecturer, Jeffrey Blutinger, was speaking to a class about the war. The students had decided to protest because of Blutinger's “problematic” views, according to Sang Hea Kil, a San Jose State professor and faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine.
Blutinger, a professor of Jewish studies at Long Beach State University, has argued that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza and has said that pro-Palestine campus protests appear to support Hamas.
While Blutinger spoke in the classroom, Roth attempted to videotape protesters in the hallway.
Video footage shows Roth taking out his phone and holding it as if he were recording. A student wearing a kaffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress, raises her hand to block the recording, and Roth grabs it and twists it away from her, as the video shows.
The students in the hallway become outraged, confronting Roth and yelling. “You can't touch a woman,” one of them is heard repeatedly shouting at Roth.
“Take him out,” shouts another.
San Jose Police Department officers stood between Roth and the students and then escorted the teacher out of the hallway, the video shows.
“They treated Jonathan Roth with kid gloves,” Kil said of the police. “The look on Jonathan Roth's face at what he did was very smug. He seemed very proud of himself for what he did.”
Kil said Roth should have been arrested for assault.
The university, which placed Roth on leave the next day, declined to comment beyond the president's memo.
Roth's attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said it was Roth who was “assaulted” on February 19.
One student grabbed Roth's phone and “instinctively raised his hand to protect himself,” Miltenberg said. It is unclear from the video whether the student grabs Roth's phone or simply raises her hand to block the video of her.
“We are conducting our preliminary investigation and may file claims on Professor Roth's behalf,” Miltenberg said.
Roth served six years in the Army National Guard. In his university profile, he laments the “quasi-Marxist attitude” in research that, he says, celebrates “revolutionary” violence.
“Linked to this is the idea of cultural relativism and Third Worldism, which I believe has been very harmful not only to the academy, but harms the very people it claims to support,” Roth wrote in his profile.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomed the university's quick decision to place Roth on leave.
“Such action is not only inexcusable but also a violation of students' rights and safety,” the group's San Francisco Bay Area office said.
Meanwhile, Kil asked the university to fire Roth over the incident.
The altercation in the hallway led the school to cut off the talk that had taken place in the classroom. Blutinger called it a violation of academic freedom that his talk was canceled.
“Everyone is focused on Roth, but I was the one who wasn't allowed to speak,” he said in an interview with The Times. “The administration and the police prevented me from speaking in a classroom. That is not allowed. They did it for public safety reasons, but it is still a violation of my rights and the rights of the students to listen to me.”
Blutinger said he watched the incident with Roth on video and did not comment on it.
“If we can allow people to close classes at the university because we don't like who teaches, then the public university will cease to exist,” he said.
