Jerusalem

A pathologist at the University of Oxford is facing an internal inquiry after he refused an Israeli student's PhD application because the student had served in Israel's army.

The student, Amit Duvshani, is currently studying in the medical faculty of Tel Aviv University. He sent a letter and curriculum vitae to Andrew Wilkie of Oxford's Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine because he was interested in Wilkie's research field of birth defects in embryos.

Wilkie responded by e-mail, advising Duvshani in no uncertain terms to look elsewhere. “I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country,” he wrote, adding: “I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army.”

Duvshani shared the e-mail among students and faculty members in the medical school, who in turn circulated it more widely to scientists and news organizers — prompting outrage at what many see as overt discrimination against a student from a country where most young people are conscripted to serve in the military. Several angry protests were made directly to Wilkie, and to the University of Oxford.

Wilkie has issued an apology, which was posted on the university's website on 27 June. “I recognise and apologise for any distress caused by my e mail of 23 June and the wholly inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document,” he wrote. Duvshani says that Wilkie subsequently contacted him personally, seeking his reaction to the incident.

The University of Oxford issued a statement announcing an internal investigation, which a spokesman says will be completed this week. “Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of university life,” the statement said, “but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or indirectly.”