https://www.jns.org/choosing-sides-in-the-battle-over-fighting-antisemitism/?utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%20Emails&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-
The latest round of congressional hearings about antisemitism on college campuses that took place this week showed that some academic leaders still haven’t gotten the message that the era of woke leftist discrimination against Jews has got to end. In an echo of the clueless and transparently discriminatory stands of the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania in December 2023, the head of Haverford College demonstrated that she was both in denial about the plight of Jewish students and unwilling to do something about it.
What’s worse is the fact that some of those we ought to expect to regard this issue as not merely a priority but a matter of life and death are opposing the first and only serious effort to rid the education system of this vile prejudice.
That’s the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from recent events, as President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans are stepping up their campaign against institutions of higher education that have either tolerated or encouraged Jew-hatred on their campuses.
This crisis had been brewing for years as progressives completed their long march through institutions of higher education and imposed toxic ideas like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism on curricula, as well as admissions and disciplinary practices throughout the nation. The widespread adoption of the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) fomented the surge in antisemitism that broke out following the Hamas-led Palestinian terrorist attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. By seeking to racialize and divide society, in addition to pointedly excluding Jews from the protections afforded to other minorities, DEI reigned over colleges and universities, setting the stage for an unprecedented siege on Jewish students.
Yet instead of giving their wholehearted support to Trump’s effort to force schools to end the harassment of Jews and the practices that backed it up, groups like the American Jewish Committee are siding with the opponents of the administration’s program, including a list of more than 500 rabbis from the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements.