Post-Glastonbury Fest, Should PR Assocs Speak Out on Anti-Semitism?
Recent statements (and non-statements) underscore selective DEI favoritism and lack of cohesive voice when it comes to antisemitism.
About 20 months ago, I recapped industry reports criticizing the New York-based Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA’s) handling of post-October 7 communication (“PRSA-NY to Jewish Community: #SorryNotSorry, We’re No Longer Sorry“).
As it happened, both PRSA and the PRSA New York (City) Chapter bungled public statements following the horrendous Hamas attacks in Israel. Numerous members of PR’s Jewish community rightly protested the apparent double-standards in PRSA’s so-called DEI stance.
For its part, PRSA-NY – then under leadership in 2023 of the Diversity Action Alliance’s Carmella Glover – at first issued a statement of solidarity with Israel and the Jewish community, to lend sympathies and a voice of compassion.
But then, PRSA-NY reversed course on its own prior statement.
Ms. Glover essentially retracted the chapter’s statement – even APOLOGIZING for it. The chapter then went into flip-flop mode, which was chronicled in the PR trade press. I found it beyond ironic that a Diversity / DEI expert as Ms. Glover would so poorly navigate this situation as to retract a statement of support for the Jewish community after the horrific October 7 attack by Hamas. I remain stunned to this day.
As my blog documented, numerous PRSA members became former members, due to lack of support for the Jewish community at both the chapter and national levels.
For the record, PRSA-NY has not updated its X feed in more than a year. It still has “pinned” to its profile that Carmella Glover is the President of PRSA-NY, when in fact, her term ended some 18 months ago. So I’m not sure what’s going on with those folks.
Meanwhile, New York is soon set (apparently) to vote an anti-Israel politician into its mayor’s office. The candidate has made no secret of his apparent disdain for those of the Jewish faith — which nonetheless is being labeled “misinformation” by his ardent supporters, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Anti-Defamation League has called it out:
We’re living in a weird, wild world of PR industry inequities and hypocrisies. The manner in which the Jewish community is treated is only the latest example.
Pivot now to our friends in the U.K. PR community, and we’re forced to ask what on earth is going on over there as well.
By now, everyone should have seen news of the egregious BBC broadcast of the anti-Semitic stage rants and audience chants at the Glastonbury Festival by the Bob Vylan stage act, which occurred less than one week ago from this writing, on June 28, 2025.
For those who don’t know, the Glastonbury Festival is one of the largest — if not the largest — music and performing arts festival in the UK.
Sadly, this year’s event of some 200,000 attendees turned ugly, when performer Bob Vylan took to the stage with an anti-Semitic verbal assault that was broadcast for an extended time on the BBC.
It has been my understanding that the BBC is – or at least has been in the past – a member of the primary UK PR associations.
The Glastonbury Festival / BBC incident begs the question of whether the UK PR associations will be issuing public statements of condemnation for these escalating displays of anti-Semitic demonstration.
I’ve been waiting all week to see / hear if there would be — but unless I missed something, I’ve neither heard nor seen anything.
For his part, U.S. President Donald Trump — via Secretary of State Marco Rubio — wasted no time in stripping Bob Vylan of his U.S. visa, prompting cancellation of Vylan’s U.S. tour:
The curious silence by the UK PR sector merits analysis. Why?… Because, it breaks with last year’s very loud pro-Muslim precedent.
Last summer, after three young school girls were murdered in a Southport, England, knife attack by a Black male (Axel Rudakubana — who was convicted in January 2025), the resulting public protests spurred demonstrations that were decried as “racist” in the media and from the UK PR community.
“White far-right” people were blamed by the UK PR industry bodies as the culprits of the demonstrations and called out as such.
It thus was made abundantly clear if anyone breathed one word about race even potentially being a motivating factor in the killings of the little girls, then they themselves would be labeled and demonized as a “racist” themselves.
Naturally, it is always wrong for an entire community to be attacked or painted with the same broad brushstroke of condemnation, just because an isolated culprit of a crime is of their particular community racially or via gender, faith, ethnicity, or other identifiable group.
However, if the tables had been turned and — for instance — it had been a white male who went on a deadly knife rampage to kill three young, innocent Black girls, then the news stories undoubtedly would rotate entirely around the race “angle” of the story as a perceived hate crime, as well it should.
Yet in reverse, the virtual edict issued in the Rudakubana case was for public censorship of that topic entirely.
Same thing in the UK rape gangs scandal.
The PR association statements of last summer also did not mention the critical context of the UK rape gangs scandal as fueling the longer-running, underlying public outrage in the Rudakubana crimes, given the nature of those largely unprosecuted, separate systemic crimes being aimed similarly against young white females, by men of a specific non-white ethnic decent. This situation deeply puzzled me.
From my vantage point, it appears it’s open season in the U.K. on white women and girls… rape them, knife them to death… anything but whisper a word about the race of the males doing the raping and the knifing.
It’s beyond bizarre. It’s twisted.
Now, with the Glastonbury incident and the BBC’s full-on broadcasting of anti-Semitic rants, the question looms:
Why has the UK PR industry chosen to remain silent?
How is this silence supposed to be interpreted, in light of the strident finger-pointing and accusations against only “white” and “right” political leaning people last year, after a Black male murdered three defenseless little school girls and seriously injured multiple others not of his race?
What does it say that people of Jewish faith can be flagrantly attacked in Glastonbury Festival-style anti-Semitic rhetoric as broadcast on the BBC, with no response from key PR and public affairs associations?
Why all the “allyship” for only Muslim communities as demonstrated last year, but Jewish communities are denied any support?
All these appearances of an “Inclusion for Me, but Not for Thee” so-called “DEI” culture are unfortunate.
I do understand that they are likely unintentional. However, I’ve witnessed this scenario before here in the States, with Jewish communities facing stonewalls or clumsy responses when their particular faith is under attack. The PR industry has a massive blind spot here.
What further appears to be driving a lot of these inconsistencies is wholesale lack of clear, transparently disclosed strategies, policies, and guidelines by the PR industry on both sides of the Atlantic, when it comes to how associations will advocate and when.
Some thoughtfully crafted, well-communicated guidelines would be helpful.
Otherwise, these obvious inconsistencies imply that it’s a “whoever screams the loudest wins the day” non-policy at hand. Or, more to the point, whoever possesses the politicized listening ear of friendly leadership gets special treatment and special favors to have their agenda heard, validated, and duly amplified across PR association communication channels.
I hope that my voicing these concerns will spur discussion and better procedures.
It’s simply not right to leave only certain faith communities (or any group that’s targeted) twisting in the wind with no support when a cruel incident of hate and discrimination occurs, while other communities receive swift support and special treatment.
Mary Beth West, APR, FPRCA is a 30-year public relations industry veteran based in the United States. Follow her on X: @marybethwest.