For the past ten years, I have been affiliated with Columbia University as a professor, collaborator, and most recently a visitor. There was often an undercurrent of anti-Semitism throughout the campus, but it remained below the surface, ignored by the Jewish community. The recent explosion of violence and protests has exposed this truth to the world. A student group filled with hate and anti-Zionist intentions, supported by some Columbia University faculty, has effectively destroyed the façade of a pledge to “fight all forms of discrimination.” While anti-Semitism has boiled over in Columbia and other schools across the country, culminating in violence and actual physical danger for Jewish students, in other schools anti-Semitism is more subtle and less obvious. There are many things. However, it is still just as toxic and dangerous.
Americans and members of the Jewish community should not be blind to the turmoil going on on college campuses, beyond what is being reported in the news. To see true hatred against Jews, look no further than Sarah Lawrence College, 12 miles north of Columbia.
The university has an outstanding Title VI complaint against it, citing a deeply ingrained culture of hostility and hostility toward Jews. In an indirect response to the complaint, the university president made his usual platitudes. Schools have a mission to “provide an environment that: all Many of our students have an unhindered opportunity to participate actively and fully in the College's educational experience, regardless of their background, beliefs, or circumstances. The university's president has indicated that he will refrain from making political statements on behalf of the university, effectively removing the university from the “focus of action.””
Theoretically, adopting the Chicago-style Kalven report A policy of neutrality is wise and responsible. And Sarah Lawrence is committed to supporting all students equally and taking appropriate steps in the right direction to address the harm caused to Jewish students and communities for decades. I took a step. However, the university has not followed these statements at all. In reality, Sarah Lawrence has taken clear political positions and continued her policies even after stating that she would not take any positions. The shameful path of supporting anti-Semitism. Because of this, Jewish students are intimidated and unable to participate fully and equitably in university life.
For example, on April 28th, a professor known as an anti-Semite, Suzanne Gardinier, who regularly posts on her social media accounts calling for the destruction of Israel, sent an explicitly political email to all faculty on campus via the university's official email group list. Mr. Gardinier is an organizer of the overtly political Sarah Lawrence Faculty and Staff for Palestine group. Ms. Gardinier sent out a memo advertising that her group would be conducting an “hour of street action on the lawn outside the Campus Center, from Yonkers to Gaza, in solidarity with Palestine, in solidarity with our brave students.” Ta. The email ends with “Looking forward to meeting you” and is signed SLFSJP. The school did not send out a reminder that such political advocacy was inappropriate for providing a school-wide list. If I sent an email promoting Jewish political activities or events, I would be immediately contacted and sanctioned, and the administration would issue a statement reminding faculty of the appropriate use of the official faculty directory. I think it would have been done.
Read the rest of this article on AEI.
Samuel J. Abrams is Professor of Political Science at Sarah Lawrence College and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Photo: SWinxy, via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 license.
