Jewish student says real problem with campus antisemitism is in classrooms
UC San Diego student Shani Menna and Hillel International president Adam Lehman discuss how universities are preparing for another school year following a wave of anti-Israel protests last year.
The Oct. 7 massacre revealed big problems with our institutions of higher education, particularly the so-called elite ones. It’s amazing that the heart of antisemitism in America lies on campus, among the most educated and progressive people in the country. And yet that’s where calls for the annihilation of Israel began even before the IDF went into Gaza – which has exposed the deep rot in academia.
As Bill Ackman put it in a revelatory essay the day Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned, antisemitism is the "canary in the coal mine," a warning about larger issues. This "oldest hatred" is always a leading indicator of assorted underlying pathologies, and here that means everything from cancel culture to ideological indoctrination, intellectual corruption to moral decay.
We’ve seen a subversion of the core mission of universities to seek truth and develop human knowledge, and of classical liberal values like free speech, due process and equality under the law. It’s been a shift from education to activism.
An anti-Israel student protester waves a large Palestinian flag at their encampment on the Columbia University campus, April 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
The root cause of antisemitism on campus is a noxious postmodern ideology that contends that truth is subjective and must be viewed through lenses of race, gender and other identity categories. Your rights and freedoms depend on whether you’re part of a class deemed oppressor or oppressed. There’s also a false narrative of decolonization.
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Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, wrote a year ago that as a 70-year-old Jewish man, "never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks." Some of us were less surprised given the anti-Israel, anti-American and generally anti-Western ideology that has taken root in higher education.
But all is not lost. Even apart from social and cultural fights against illiberalism, there’s a vast panoply of civil rights and other laws that can be marshaled to push back on the abuses and disorder the latest incarnation of antisemitism has wrought. As the most pro-Israel president in American history is set to return to office – and the only one with Jewish grandchildren – here are some concrete things that Donald Trump can do.
Update and codify his executive order on antisemitism
Five years ago, Trump issued EO 13899, which called for robust enforcement of protections for Jews in all federally funded programs – including educational institutions. This order adopted and operationalized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The new administration should flesh it out, as well as pushing to codify it through the Antisemitism Awareness Act (which outgoing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has declined to bring to the Senate floor after the House passed it).
Enforce existing laws
The Justice Department possesses broad powers that can now be turned on actual domestic terrorists instead of, say, parents who speak at school board meetings. The Federal Bureau of Investigation can investigate organizations that are fronts for terrorist groups, in conjunction with state attorneys general like Virginia’s Jason Miyares, who began looking into suspect charities in October 2023.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may prohibit even nonviolent "material support" for terrorism, including "advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization." RICO, which imposes criminal and civil penalties for organized crime, includes anti-conspiracy provisions applicable here. The Antiterrorism Act also provides a basis for punishing those who support America’s enemies. The FBI should shut down the groups that foment so much antisemitic disorder and intimidation on our streets and campuses.
ANTISEMITISM ON TODAY'S COLLEGE CAMPUSES ECHOES THE DARK PASTS OF MANY ELITE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES
Revoke tax-exempt status for antisemitic nonprofits
Organizations that receive tax-exempt status must have a religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purpose. But many of the groups that devote significant resources to antisemitic intimidation and protest, like Students for Justice in Palestine, disguise themselves as advocacy or educational groups. Trump should direct his nominee for IRS commissioner, the fast-talking former Congressman Billy Long, to investigate disruptive groups with a view to increased transparency and the revocation of tax exemption from those that engage in discriminatory conduct.
Revoke visas for students and others engaging in antisemitic agitation
A year ago, the State Department confirmed to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., now the nominee to be secretary of state, that it has the authority to revoke the visas of foreign nationals who espouse support for terrorism or otherwise violate federal laws. This authority has been little-used, in part because universities decline to take action against harassers who prevent Jewish students from attending class, precisely because they know that many of them would be subject to deportation. It’s time to stop giving foreign agitators more rights than even domestic miscreants possess.
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Deny funding to universities that allow civil rights violations
Appeasement of antisemitism opens up universities to claims under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lawsuits have proliferated and are winning or gaining settlements against institutions such as UCLA, NYU and the University of Virginia. The Department of Education should work with congressional committees that have begun laying the groundwork for the withholding of federal funds from institutions that persist in denying equal educational opportunities.
Rescind Biden’s executive orders on whole-of-government DEI
As his very first official act, President Biden signed EO 13985, which established that "affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government." It directed all governmental units to eliminate "systemic barriers" to identity-based rules.
As I describe in my book "Lawless," a slew of executive actions and proclamations followed, each one reciting a litany of directives on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The upshot is that the federal government has now fully adopted the DEI agenda and, through its army of lawyers and bureaucrats, is reinforcing it throughout every nook and cranny of its increasing reach into our lives. That’s why Biden also revoked President Trump’s EO 13950, which, among other things, blocked federal agencies and contractors from giving workplace instruction on "divisive concepts" such as race or sex essentialism.
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As it happens, DEI staff tend to be the most antisemitic people on campus and DEI trainings manufacture perceptions of prejudice and even agreement with Hitler. That’s why the new Trump administration must root out these political commissars. As my colleague Chris Rufo recently put it, "Immediately on assuming office, the president should issue a suite of executive orders to ‘surround and smother’ left-wing ideologies across six domains: bureaucracy, content, policy, funding, behavior, and personnel."
New legislation may be helpful to handling the new threats that have arisen – for example, a national right-to-work act to liberate unionized professors or antimasking laws of the sort that were effective in countering the Ku Klux Klan. But even without Congress, the new Trump administration has plenty of tools at its disposal to combat antisemitism.