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Bentley Wall, a University of Chicago employee became the center of controversy when he was caught tearing off posters of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas. Wall is a lab manager at the Gordon Center for Integrative Science at the James Franck Institute. When confronted, the man refused to give any sort of reasoning for his actions and proceeded to call the police.
Netizens were outraged at the antics of the man and demanded that the University of Chicago fire him. Social media users called him an antisemite and a terrorist supporter. People requested him to leave the country and go to Gaza.
Bentley Wall called the police on the woman recording him
Bentley Wall is an employee of the University of Chicago. According to the university website, Wall works at the University's James Frank Institute. The man works as the Building and Lab Manager at the Gordon Center for Integrative Science at the James Franck Institute. His contact information including a phone number and the university email address was provided on the website.
On the official website of Kent State University, Bentley Wall was listed as an Adjunct Assistant Professor for Materials Science at the Kent campus. The website detailed that he received a BA in Chemistry degree from the College of Wooster in 1988, an MS in Chemical Engineering from Case University in 1996, and a PhD in Macromolecular Science from Case University in 1999.
A ResearchGate page from Kent State University that dates up to 2012 detailed that Wall had 16 publications, 936 reads, and 202 citations. A Facebook account with his name and picture only has a profile picture in it.
Bentley Wall rose to online infamy and became the target of heavy internet backlash after a viral video of him was published by the official X (formerly known as Twitter) handle of Stop Antisemitism, a popular account that ousts alleged antisemites. Wall's video was published on November 17, 2023, and has amassed over 1.5 million views, at the time of writing this article.
The video showcased a disinterested-looking Wall removing posters of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas, which were stuck onto a couple of Pillars. The woman recording the footage asked Wall why he was doing this and Wall simply replied by threatening her with calling the police again, insinuating that he had threatened her with calling the cops, once before.
The woman tells him to go ahead and once again asks him why he was removing the posters. "Will you remove dogs? missing dogs?" asked the woman as Wall continued to rip off the posters while replying with:
"I don't care,"
"You're antisemite," the woman said to his face as Bentley Wall took out his phone and proceeded to call the police. The woman asked him again to explain the reason as to why he was doing this. Wall once again, simply refused to elaborate on his actions. He said:
"I'm not talking to you,"
"One way ticket to Gaza will solve it 👌🏽": Bentley Wall sparks online outrage
The viral video sparked a plethora of harsh backlash from social media users who immediately called Bentley Wall, a terrorist supporter and an antisemite. Calls for his firing from the University grew louder as a lot of people encouraged users to make him famous so that he may lose his job.
Many did not understand why the posters affected the man so much and called him a "nasty" person. Others were of the opinion that a "One way ticket to Gaza" would solve his issues. Here are a few reactions from Stop Antisemtism's tweet of the video:
A simple Google search reveals that Bentley Wall's LinkedIn page seems to have disappeared following his online infamy. As of this moment, there has been no official response from the University of Chicago regarding the involvement of an employee in the incident.
