University of Michigan Clinical Assistant Professor and public broadcasting contributor Erik Gordon was photographed last week ripping a photo of an Israeli hostage from a campus wall.
The posting of Gordon’s photo prompted social media calls for either his resignation or immediate termination.
The photo depicts Gordon tearing down a photo of one of the hostages from the wall with his right hand. His left hand is clutching other hostage photos. The photo was posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Oct. 13.
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https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1712855649699115099
The Midwesterner has not received responses from emails to Gordon and UM’s Senior Public Relations Specialist, Matthew Trevor. Gordon’s campus voicemail box is full, and would not take any new messages.
According to public documents, Gordon receives a $192,000 salary from UM. His university biography lists “entrepreneurship and technology commercialization, venture capital, private equity, mergers, 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” among his areas of interest.
The photo of Gordon prompted former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer to post: “Condemning the barbaric slaughter of innocents should be the reflexive impulse to any feeling person- yet on campuses across the country we see vile antisemitism and outright celebration of Hamas’ bloodlust. Absolutely shameful.”
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Other X posts included screenshots of online negative remarks made about Gordon by his former students. One such rating notes: “This is, not one, but THE worst professors I’ve ever had. I know far too many kids who have dropped this class, and he seems to take pride in the fact that so many people drop. Not only this, he makes students so stupid in front of everybody and lacks human decency. Thinks hes [sic] a hot shot, but is the worst teacher I’ve ever had. Terrible.”
According to his UM biography, Gordon also contributes to National Public Radio Morning Edition’s Marketplace and Marketplace Morning Report, and has been quoted in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, BusinessInsider, and AXIOS.
Gordon also served on the faculty of the UM Law School and was faculty, associate dean, and director of the Graduate Division of Business & Management at John Hopkins University. He was also director of the Center for Technology & Science Commercialization Studies and Director of MBA Programs at the University of Florida.
UPDATE: On Monday, Oct. 23, 2023, Erik Gordon responded to The Midwesterner’s email request for comment. Gordon wrote: “What is being circulated is completely inaccurate. I moved flyers from a wall where they are not permitted to be taped, and put them on the flyers bulletin board in the same building after the person taping the flyers to the wall declined my request to do that. Let me be utterly clear: I abhor antisemitism.”