Where Is The Evidence Antisemitism Has 'Exploded' On College Campuses?

Every American has a Constitutional right to engage in peaceful protest. This right is too important to sacrifice based on dubious, unsubstantiated claims and self-serving wordplay.

The hysteria about antisemitism is reminiscent of Sen. Joseph McCarthy campaign to ferret out Communist infiltrators in the U.S. government in the 1950s.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week it is forming a “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” that will include the U.S. Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS), and other agencies.

Meanwhile, the DOE announced it will investigate five institutions of higher education “in response to the explosion of antisemitism on American campuses following the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.” Colleges that will be investigated include Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

If there was an explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, all of this might be apropos. But what evidence warrants both a joint government task force and a separate DOE investigation of five universities?

Google AI

I asked Google AI for the evidence, and it referred me to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-profit 501 (C) 3 organization that works to eliminate antisemitism in the United States. Despite its charitable status, the ADL, which has an office in Israel, paid its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, more than $1.2 million in 2022.

Greenblatt recently tweeted that Jewish students have been “harassed for months on US campuses… As a result, Jewish student’s (sic) feel compelled to conceal their identity and beliefs. This is unacceptable, period. And it must change now.”

The ADL claims it conducted a recent survey that found “83% of U.S. Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.” Superficially, this appears to be an explosion of antisemitism. But on close analysis, it is less persuasive.

What is ‘antisemitism’?

The ADL says most Jewish students have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism. But what constitutes “antisemitism”?

Traditionally, antisemitism, like sexism and racism, is a form of prejudice. People who hold adverse views and stereotypes about members of a historically disadvantaged group are deemed to be prejudiced. Sadly, a lot of people hold prejudicial views, which are ugly but not illegal.

Prejudice in the form of antisemitism becomes actionable when it manifests as illegal discrimination, such as when the government withholds services or benefits based on race, sex or religion, or when workers are subject to an adverse employment action (not hired or fired) because of their membership in a protected group.

The ADL’s definition of antisemitism includes “the increasing prevalence of anti-Zionist views that mask deeper prejudices.” This is broad language that falls outside historical boundaries of discrimination.

For one thing, Zionism is a political movement that advocates for the state of Israel. The ADL appears to conflate antisemitism with opposing the policies advocated by the Zionist movement in Gaza.

Also, what are the deeper prejudices that magically transform anti-Zionist views into antisemitism? How does the ADL know that anti-Zionist views mask deeper prejudices?

Is it not discriminatory for student protesters to peacefully oppose the U.S.-backed war in Gaza.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to “assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The so-called Pro-Palestinian protests are apropos because the U.S. government has given Israel more than $18 billion taxpayer dollars to flatten Gaza while indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of women, children and old people.

Also, the International Criminal Court has characterized Israel’s bombardment of Gaza with U.S.-made two-ton bombs as a “plausible” genocide. Moreover, a Gallup poll a year ago showed that 55% of Americans opposed backing Israels military action in Gaza.

Why Is This Protest Different?

College students have been protesting on college campuses since before the founding of the United States.

Bestcolleges.com traces the history of student protest in the United States to the 1600s, when, shortly after the founding of Harvard College, the first class of students protested President Nathaniel Eaton’s practice of beating students as a form of discipline.

Since then, college students have protected racial segregation and marched for civil rights. They protested the Vietnam Conflict. Demanded equal rights for women. Opposed the apartheid policies in South Africa.

In the 1960s, Alabama State College expelled six Black students at a Black segregated college for participating in a civil rights demonstration and the students sued, winning a victory in Dixon v. Alabama (1961). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colleges cannot violate the constitutional rights of their students.

Why it is acceptable to treat the student protests today differently than other protests?

The Spector of McCarthyism

It is worrisome that newly-elected President Donald J. Trump announced he is seeking to penalize college students for engaging in what is clearly legitimate protest, even threatening to deport foreign student protesters who are not American citizens.

In an executive order, Trump claims “Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault.”

Where is the evidence that Jewish students were denied access to university facilities, as opposed to making a choice to avoid what to them felt like a painful protest.

Trump’s inflammatory language evokes the notorious period in America when U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, whipped the public into a frenzy over allegations that Communists were infiltrating the American government and society. McCarthy’s browbeating tactics destroyed the careers of innocent people, including some 500 artists who were blacklisted.

McCarthy’s campaign prompted a prominent CBS television journalist, Edward R. Murrow, to state in a televised address:

“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”

The ADL report states that 92.5% of students who reported witnessing or experiencing an incident of antisemitism on campus did not report the incident to campus authorities. The low rates of reporting, according to the ADL, “highlight a need for more robust and consolidated reporting mechanisms offered by colleges and universities.” Either that or the students didn’t identify the incident as being antisemitic until reading the ADL’s definition of antisemitism, or they didn’t think it was significant enough to report, or … whatever.

The irony, of course, is that many student protesters suffered actual physical assaults from pro-Israel counterprotesters that were largely ignored and unaddressed.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, violent counterprotesters believed to be from outside the university attacked student protesters in May 2024 by spraying aerosol irritants at them, tearing down barricades, beating people with metal poles and wooden planks, and launching fireworks. University-hired security forces locked themselves in nearby buildings and police looked on for at least four hours before intervening.

No task force is being formed to look into this…