Second Temple University student suspended after antisemitic incident at Barstool's Philadelphia bar
A second Temple University student has been placed on interim suspension in connection with the antisemitic incident that happened at Barstool Sansom Street in Philadelphia last weekend.
The first Temple student was suspended on Sunday after a video on social media showed a sign that said "[Expletive] the Jews" on display during bottle service at Barstool's Philadelphia bar on Saturday night.
In a letter to the Temple community, President John Fry said on Wednesday that the university became aware that one of the students participated in an interview with a "media personality who has a history of producing extreme antisemitic and racist content."
"The content of this interview was both appalling and deeply offensive," Fry wrote. "Antisemitism is not tolerated at Temple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms, and we will be relentless in efforts to combat it, especially when members of our community have been targeted because of their Jewish identity."
After the video showing the antisemitic sign surfaced on Sunday, Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy, who is Jewish, said that the students agreed to go on a trip that he would fund to Auschwitz, a former Nazi Germany concentration camp during World War II, to learn about the Holocaust. He said he hoped it would be a learning experience.
But then on Monday, Portnoy said in a post on X that he "revoked" the trip to Poland, where Auschwitz is located, for at least one of the people involved because the person "is no longer taking responsibility" for the sign.
Portnoy and the Temple student have posted more videos to social media since the trip was revoked.
Fry said the university also learned of a "troubling video circulating on social media in which a current Temple University student makes alarming comments related to the United States." He said the video is unrelated to the incident at Barstool but didn't specify if it involved either of the students on interim suspension.
According to Fry, the person in the video identified as a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Fry said SJP isn't recognized as a student organization at Temple, and it remains suspended because of actions that violated the Student Conduct Code.
SJP was placed on interim suspension in 2024 after a protest that Temple said wasn't "peaceful." During that protest, a Muslim woman said Philadelphia police forced her to remove her hijab.
"While Temple is committed to honoring the principles of free speech and fostering an environment open to a diversity of thought, opinion and peaceful expression, the language and views expressed in these instances are reprehensible and not in keeping with our university's values," Fry said in the statement.
Portnoy said on Sunday that the workers involved with making the antisemitic sign were fired.
In a statement on Instagram on Sunday, the bar wrote in part: "We are saddened, embarrassed, and frustrated by the deplorable actions of a customer and misguided staff acting outside the scope of their duties, which resulted in anti-semitic hate speech last evening at our establishment. Unfortunately, several employees ignored all of their training and the organization's written policies regarding our zero tolerance policy for discrimination and hate. Instead, the employees complied with a customer's request for a sign in connection with ordering bottle service."
Antisemitic incidents have been on the rise since the terror group Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the American Jewish Committee, a civil rights and Jewish advocacy group.
Jason Holtzman, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, called what happened unacceptable.
"Ever since then, we really seen an uptick of hate against Jewish people, vandalism of Jewish institutions," Holtzman said on Sunday.
"It's really a disturbing sign of the times," he added.
