In June, the Darden School of Business promoted then-Vice Dean Yael Grushka-Cockayne to serve as its next dean. Now, less than a month into her tenure, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Virginia is already calling for her resignation. SJP posted a scathing social media statement Aug. 13 lambasting Darden for promoting the vice dean, accusing the University of being led by individuals like Grushka-Cockayne who “endorse, support and actively took part in genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.” Accompanying their charges was a petition to terminate her role. Her crime? Being Israeli. SJP is generating manufactured outrage over the ethnicity of a faculty member and advancing a torrent of laughable complaints.
SJP’s post begins by highlighting Grushka-Cockayne’s resume, specifically her military service in the Israel Defense Forces. This military service, in SJP’s view, apparently disqualifies her from serving at our University. The post paints a caricatured image of Grushka-Cockayne as some sort of bloodthirsty soldier participating in a genocide. The problem is that SJP’s post misses one crucial detail — virtually every Israeli will serve in the IDF at some point. She did not have a choice. Israeli law makes conscription compulsory and punishable by up to five years in prison. If SJP believes that IDF service should prohibit the University from hiring an otherwise qualified candidate, then nearly every person raised within the borders of the Jewish state would be rendered automatically ineligible to ever serve on our University faculty. That is insane. SJP’s standard would impose such an ethnicity-based barrier on every Israeli citizen with almost no exceptions.
The post further slanders Grushka-Cockayne by appearing to personally connect her to supposed war crimes committed during her service period between 1993 and 1996. Claiming that Grushka-Cockayne actively took part in genocide is a serious charge, and one that should not be leveled impetuously. It is also a charge that is not borne out by reality. As a junior officer, Grushka-Cockayne was not in a position to make operational decisions to conduct violent action. Furthermore, an understanding of the structure of the IDF puts this entire accusation to rest. Women were not legally permitted to serve in most combat roles in the IDF until 2000, four years after her service period concluded, which means that she was not tangibly involved in any military action. Does SJP honestly believe that a conscripted 20-something year old lieutenant in a non-combat role should be punished for decisions that she did not make, carried out by soldiers that she did not fight alongside?
Another one of her transgressions, according to SJP, is her work at an Israeli business-software company, Eshbel Technologies, now known as Priority. Priority primarily specializes in enterprise resource planning, a system designed to streamline business functions — not exactly war crimes. SJP makes a sweeping allegation that Priority is associated with Israeli Aerospace Industries, but the post overblows a linkage that is not reasonably substantiated. Moreover, any hypothetical business that Priority could have done with IAI would presumably be outside Grushka-Cockane’s job description as marketing director of the U.S. branch. It is also worth noting that IAI halted fighter jet production in 1987. Involvement with Priority does not seem to reasonably connect to Grushka-Cockayne’s alleged endorsement or participation in apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Unfortunately, SJP seems eager to raise a five-alarm fire over anything remotely affiliated with Israel. This July, the organization went as far as to call for the cancellation of an event in Tel Aviv, Israel designed to connect with prospective Israeli students — an event having nothing to do with Israeli military action in Iran, Gaza or elsewhere. Rather than advancing any substantive concerns, SJP appears to harbor a personal vendetta against all things Israeli.
While attributing motive to statements like this is difficult, it appears that SJP’s main issue with Grushka-Cockayne is that she is Israeli. Foreign policy in 2026 is a complicated and nuanced issue, but it is not made less complicated and nuanced by disgruntled partisans who hear the word “Israel” and thus decide that hell has frozen over. Students at our University should evaluate Dean Grushka-Cockayne’s performance based on measurable standards, not based on her ethnicity. SJP has done the University a disservice by hurling such outlandish accusations at a member of our faculty, and they have diluted their broader organizational message through a bizarre pattern of alarmism over purported problems that are, at best, illusory. No, Grushka-Cockayne should not be forced to resign before Darden even opens its doors for the fall, and SJP should seriously reconsider suggesting such a dramatic step.
Joshua Hawkins is an opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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