Another spring, another round of anti-Semitism on campus

The weather is growing warm, which means anti-Semitic demonstrations are blooming at elite universities. The hatred of Jews is no longer hidden, as it was in the days when Jewish enrollment was quietly limited by quotas. Now, it is displayed openly by a campus coalition led by hardline American leftists (students, faculty, and administrators) and Muslim students, some from America, some from the Middle East. 

Their hatred is screamed at Jewish students and pro-Israeli speakers—and then at anyone who dares support them or simply demands the basic right to speak or be heard. Any support for Israel is damned as “genocide” and then shouted down, shamed, or worse. The demonstrators have no compunctions about accusing any political adversary of complicity in horrific crimes.

The good news – there is some – is that a few universities are beginning to say “Stop It!” Yale, to its credit, just revoked the official status of Yalies4Palestine for “flagrantly violating the rules” when it set up an encampment and blocked Jewish students from crossing. The group’s violations came after it had met with senior university officials and been warned about its future actions. They disregarded the warnings. The question now is whether Yale will do more than revoke the organization’s “registered student status”? Will it discipline the students? It hasn’t so far, just as it failed in the past when the demonstrations supported other leftist causes. Remember, too, that Columbia did nothing to the students who camped on for weeks and occupied a building on campus. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg let them go with a pat on the head.

Problems like those at Yale and Columbia are not new, but they have grown worse because of weak-kneed responses from leaders, on campus and off. University administrators almost never suspend or expel students for harassing other students or violating basic rules of campus life. District attorneys in blue states are just as bad. They have done little to punish students and their allies who break the law, all under the false flag of “progressivism.” The Biden Administration and its Department of Justice were just as bad.

The fecklessness of university leaders, district attorneys, and other public officials virtually guarantees the return of these noxious activities as the weather turns balmy. No punishment for bad behavior encourages more bad behavior in the future. 

That’s exactly what has happened on campus for several years running. The only firm responses have come from the Trump administration, mainly the Departments of Justice, State, and Education. More on their responses in a moment.

Where have we seen these anti-Semitic actions in recent years? What kinds of actions are they? The “where” is easy. Elite universities on both coasts. “What kinds of anti-Semitic actions?” The full range, unfortunately. Those include harassment, intimidation, and threats of pro-Israel students, and sometimes all Jews, that go well beyond the protected free-speech rights of everyAmerican citizen.

Encampments and barricades have been erected, without permission or punishment, in the centers of campus, obstructing the free movement of students and their sense of safety. The violation of university rules is blatant. So is the violation of US Civil Rights laws that guarantee the rights of minorities, including Jewish students. Again, far too little pushback by those in charge, too little defense of the basic principles of education and those of a liberal, tolerant polity. If those principles are not defended, they will be lost.

The protesters almost always hide their identities behind masks. They theatrically proclaim their solidarity with Palestine (and perhaps Hamas) by wearing headscarves. Over and over, they chant “Palestine must be free from the river to the sea,” meaning the Jewish state must be wiped entirely off the map. They leave their encampments to march through the library, disrupting students studying there, or take over university buildings, as they did at Columbia and Stanford. Some have actually set up “Jew free zones” (at UCLA) or prevented Jewish students from walking across campus (at Yale this week). Columbia students are planning another tent-city next week.

They demand universities sell all investments associated with Israel, a demand they have stressed unsuccessfully for years. The movement to “Boycott, Sanction, and Divest” includes demands that universities not permit speakers from Israel or hire faculty from there.

These actions receive funding and support from beyond the campus, mostly from “progressive” non-profits, Middle Eastern donors and Islamist foundations. It is unclear whether foreign governments have played a role, though it is clear they have done nothing to stop their richest citizens from offering support. 

The level of funding is apparent in the tent encampments. The tents are expensive and identical.The encampments are well-organized, thanks to experienced activists, who arrive on campus to set up tents for “press,” “wellness,” “food,” and so on. They also bring large, identical umbrellas with pointed and threatening tips. Those are used to prevent photographs of the protesters and their signs and to threaten anyone who dares take those pictures. (I know that from personal experience.) Older adults from outside campus provide the umbrellas and show students how to use them for intimidation. The tactics come from Antifa.

All this has happened at institutions that once prided themselves as centers of tolerant, liberal discourse, civil disputations, and the sustenance of Western Civilization. The stewards of those institutions have done too little to push back against attacks on those basic principles, either because they agree with the ideology (if not the tactics) or because they lack the spine to challenge them.

This spring might be different, though the protests and encampments are likely to return. What’s different is that the Trump administration, unlike its predecessor, is taking a strong stand against these anti-Semitic demonstrations and against universities that tolerate them.

Trump’s stand is a sharp kick in the groin for university administrators and their boards of trustees. At stake is the lifeblood of every research university: federal grant money, which is essential for work in the biological and physical sciences. The Trump administration has already paused billions in grants to Harvard and others, and is now facing the expected court battles over whether they can do so.

The State Department, under Marco Rubio, is terminating the visas of students from countries hostile to the United States and won’t be issuing them in the autumn. Those students typically pay full tuition, so their diminished numbers are another blow to university budgets.

Donors and parents are still more sources of resistance to universities that fail to protect students from anti-Semitism. That includes plenty of non-Jewish parents and alumni. Who wants to fund a new building if the walls are going to be painted with graffiti, damning America, Israel, and Western civilization? Who wants to send a son or daughter to Columbia, where they will either be intimidated or, worse, join a group that intimidates others? Why send them into these cauldrons of indoctrination? Far better to pay tuition at great schools like Virginia or Vanderbilt that understand their fundamental duty to protect students and their rights to free speech and a challenging education.

The Trump administration has a winning issue here, even if it overreaches (as it so often does) by seeking to control departments and curricula. But it is surely right in saying that universities have a legal duty, as well as a moral one, to protect their students from the enraged minorities on campus that would trample their fundamental rights. If universities won’t do it themselves, if local prosecutors won’t do it, then the Trump administration will.