A group of faculty are calling on the University of Utah to immediately terminate a new international partnership leaders signed onto last month with a controversial Israeli-sponsored school.

The academic agreement quietly formalized by U. President Taylor Randall on May 19 is with Ariel University , which is considered the first settlement school established by Israel in the occupied West Bank — land that is internationally recognized as Palestinian territory.

In a letter and accompanying petition to University of Utah leadership Tuesday, 20 current faculty and staff members called it a “mystifying decision” to sign a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the Middle Eastern school and urged the U. to back out, particularly as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has torn up th

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