Can the Brandeis Centre complaint be the wake-up call we shouldn't have needed?
Three simple ways to start addressing Antisemitism on campus
On Tuesday, the first reports came out about the Title IX complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Centre for Human Rights Law against the University of Vermont. Once again, the question of Israel is being used as a litmus test for the acceptability of Jews on campus. Even several months removed from campus life and politics, the reports sent a chill down my spine, evoking the emotions of a situation I grew to be far too familiar with during my three years of law school. I was filled with sadness and fear for my close friends and family members who have recently returned to campus for what is likely to be another challenging year.
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has begun a formal investigation into the complaint, which alleged that Jewish students at the University of Vermont have been subject to severe and persistent Antisemitic harassment and discrimination. The examples cited in the complaint ranged from a Teaching Assistant posting online that they would lower the grades of Zionist students and encouraging other students to engage in cyberbullying of Zionist students, to a group for sexual assault survivors on campus announcing that they would block Zionist students from social media accounts, and require Jewish students to denounce Israel to join the group. The list of incidents goes on and on, and the echoes of my time on campus ring in my ears the more that stories come out. My experience was not unique; everything seems to be the same, everywhere. The Provost and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office at the University of Vermont, the places where complaints of this nature are more often referred, have been reluctant to address the issue with Jewish student leaders or take the necessary next steps to begin developing and implementing solutions. Similar complaints have also been filed by the Brandeis Centre at State University of New York, University of Illinois, Brooklyn College, and the University of Southern California.
As we cheer on our classmates, friends, and family members in other minority groups as they win small and large battles to improve their experience on campus, Jewish students are rarely on the receiving end of meaningful victories at their universities.
I have enjoyed the relative peace of the last few months free from my former campus and peers. It’s a bittersweet feeling that I was thankful to graduate before returning to school in person. As I watch the situation continue to devolve at my former university and at so many other schools, I have started to wonder if they fundamentally do not understand what would make life better for Jewish students on campus, no matter how many meetings are set or how many times specific change is requested.
While it may sound ridiculous that a university would not know what to do, it almost makes sense. When Jewish students file discrimination complaints, the university looks around and more often than not, sees no shortage of Jewish representation among faculty. They see Jewish students being equally if not overrepresented in the student population, and because these are the asks of so many student groups, they shrug their shoulders and say “what more can we do?” The answer to that question is long and varies from one school to the next, but I thought today I would say three things that every university could do to start to address Antisemitism.
Treat Antisemitism like every other form of racism
Jews are consistently subject to more hate crimes than any other religious minority. This includes violence, in particular against the Orthodox community, and widespread incidents of harassment, particularly online. This is without accounting for incidents like the Colleyville hostage crisis and numerous other planned attacks law enforcement agencies were able to intercept. These threats are very real, and yet they are often dismissed as a lesser form of racism - something the university can wait to take action on. They can’t. The double standard that is so often applied to the experiences of Jewish students needs to end.
When a Jewish student or Jewish student leaders come to raise concerns about Antisemitism with faculty and administration, the first question the university should ask itself is how it would handle the situation if any other minority group had brought it forward.
Perform better background checks on the social media activity of faculty and administration
The sections of the complaint against University of Vermont about the Teaching Assistant’s Twitter activity described a scene I watched play out at my own university in the weeks leading up to, and following my graduation when several new professors with shocking Twitter activity were invited to join the faculty. We live in a digital age. What this translates into for Jewish students is more often than not a Twitter search of their professors and Teaching Assistants to check for any recent history of Antisemitic activity. The frequency with which our test renders a positive result should be concerning for anyone on the hiring committee of university faculty.
The answer for what to do is very simple. While I absolutely believe in freedom of expression, I do not believe that the line between freedom and hate is as grey as many would argue that it is. Faculties need to start making a habit of regularly checking the Twitter and other social media activity of prospective candidates and current faculty members. Too often, tenured professors have been found to have Tweeted any manner of Antisemitic content, seemingly unnoticed by university administration until outside groups put pressure on them to take action (a prime example of this would be the UC Merced professor who Tweeted memes of the “Zionist brain”).
If students know to check a professor’s social media before enrolling in their course, administration should know to be checking as well.
Stop excusing anti-Zionism
Stop defending anti-Zionism on campus. There is a difference between the legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism, most easily outlined by Natan Sharansky’s “3-D Test”. If rhetoric involves (1) the demonization of Israel, (2) applies a double standard to Israel, or (3) delegitimizes Israel as a nation, it is not legitimate criticism of government policy but Antisemitism. Israel is not perfect, no country is, but it cannot be held to a different standard than other similarly situated countries.
There is a tendency on campuses to excuse behaviour, like that of the sexual assault survivor’s group at University of Vermont, as an exercise of freedom of speech or a political statement. It’s not. When clubs on campus say that Zionist students are not welcome, they are engaging the third prong of the 3-D test, and forcing Jewish students to disavow a fundamental part of Jewish identity in order to be part of their campus community.
Universities need to stop excusing this rhetoric when it comes from students and faculty.
Doing these three things will not fix Antisemitism on campus. It is not ever going to entirely disappear, but creating solid policies with teeth on these three points would go a long way to improving Jewish safety on campus this year and in the years to come.
Well said Sadie. Concrete steps that could help bring about positive change. No excuses.