Nassim Abi Ghanem Receives 2024 Beth Rickey Award from the Bard Center for the Study of Hate

The Bard Center for the Study of Hate is proud to announce that Dr. Nassim Abi Ghanem, a member of the Bard College Berlin faculty, is the winner of the 2024 Beth Rickey Award. The award is given to a member of the Bard/OSUN Network community who has “taken sustained and effective action against hate [and whose] achievements can either be in scholarship, adding to our understanding of how hatred works, or actions, such as political organizing or media work.”
 
Nassim Abi Ghanem’s academic focus is on “peace and conflict, non-state actors’ involvement in international politics, conflict management and peacebuilding, and social network theory.” He put his academic understanding, and his humanity, in practice in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel’s unrelenting and devastating response.
 
Michelle Murray, associate professor of political studies and chair of the Social Studies division at Bard College, happened to be in Berlin during the week of October 9th and was moved by the work she saw Professor Abi Ghanem doing.
 
“As was the case with colleges and universities across the globe, members of the Bard College Berlin community had to grapple with the tensions inherent to a democratic society that values freedom of expression,” Murray said. “I was so impressed with the leadership and courage that Nassim showed during this difficult time. He met with students and he met with faculty colleagues. He accompanied members of the administration to meet with neighborhood organizations. Throughout he demonstrated a remarkable and unique ability to listen and make sure that people felt heard. I watched as he was pulled out of meetings to help manage crises, as he was relied upon by senior members of the administration for his wisdom and advice, and witnessed firsthand the trust people had in him to help them try to understand their own positions and the positions of others. The leadership and empathy he showed during that week, and since, has been nothing less than inspirational.”

The annual Beth Rickey Award is given in memory of Elizabeth “Beth” Rickey, who died on September 12 in 2009. Rickey was a Republican State Committeewoman in Louisiana. Politically conservative, Rickey was appalled when neo-Nazi and former Klansman David Duke won elected office and devastated that many of her fellow Republicans in state government welcomed Duke into their midst. She made it her mission to expose Duke, following him to meetings with other white supremacists, showing that he continued to sell Mein Kampf and Holocaust-denying material from his legislative office.

“Post-October 7 we’ve seen hate expressed on many campuses, here and abroad,” said Kenneth S. Stern ’75, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and a friend of Rickey’s. Rickey had a rare quality shared by Abi Ghanem, which Murray highlighted in her nomination: “Nassim has been a beacon of hope, able to demonstrate through his actions that communities can stick together even when we disagree passionately and the stakes are high.”

The Bard Center for the Study of Hate works to increase the serious study of human hatred, and ways to combat it. The Beth Rickey Award is supported, in part, by people who worked with Beth Rickey (including academics and journalists), as well as The Southern Institute for Education and Research Archive. BCSH is a program of Bard’s Human Rights Project. 

Post Date: 09-12-2024