Rush Hour director Brett Ratner said he will never again donate to his alma mater New York University in the wake of anti-semitic actions by students in recent weeks.
Brett Ratner — whose Hollywood career fell victim to the #MeToo movement — expressed his disgust with the NYU students in an Instagram Story post Wednesday.
“So disappointed in my alma mater,” he wrote. “Never donating again.”
His post featured a Washington Square News article about a recent Senate resolution that condemned “antisemitic student activities” across college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
NYU is cited twice in the resolution, including an incident involving the president of the Student Bar Association of New York University School of Law, who blamed Israel for Hamas’ mass slaughter of Israeli civilians last month.
Ryna Workman, who identifies as gender “non-binary,” wrote ‘‘to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination. Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
The Senate resolution also cites the NYU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, saying the group rejected ‘‘peaceful discourse’’ and instead claimed ‘’there is no peace in a colonized people living under occupation, subjugation, and apartheid.'”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) submitted the resolution last month.
Ratner attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied cinema. He graduated in 1990.
The filmmaker once served on Tisch’s Dean Council, which “provides the dean and the school with the valuable counsel and annual support necessary to position the Tisch School of the Arts as the preeminent arts training institution in the world.”
In addition to directing several Hollywood hits, including the three Rush Hour movies, Ratner was a major production force through his company RatPac Entertainment, which has helped finance numerous movies by prominent directors.
Ratner’s Hollywood career came to a halt in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement, when several women accused him of sexual assault and harassment.
Ratner has maintained his innocence.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Ratner had immigrated to Israel after the filmmaker posted to his Instagram Story images of Israeli immigration documents.
Major universities are seeing wealthy alumni halt their donations in the wake of anti-semitic student activity.
As Breitbart News reported, the University of Pennsylvania saw Jon Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador and a major donor to the university, say he would no longer be funding the school. Vahan Gureghian resigned from Penn’s board of trustees for the same reason.
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