More Speech, Not Enforced Silence Is the Answer to Anti-Semitism

In 2020, an arsonist torched the Chabad Center for Jewish Life at the University of Delaware. At the University of Southern California, Jewish student Rose Ritch resigned as student government president after students launched a social media campaign to “impeach her Zionist a**” and accused her of being a racist on the basis of her support for Israel.  At Arizona State University, posters appeared announcing, “Hitler was right.”

And this was just in August.

Also in August, Hillel International announced the launch of a new Campus Climate Initiative (CCI). The CCI will “provide measurement tools, best practices, education, and training designed to empower university leadership to understand the threats of antisemitism, take proactive steps to minimize them, and directly address them when they occur.” We hope this initiative will go a long way toward eradicating anti-Semitism on campuses.

What we hope the initiative does not do is encourage administrators and students to censor speech.

Too often, when faced with anti-Jewish sentiment on campus, the impulse is to silence it — either with administrative authority or through other means. A new study conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), with data on close to 20,000 students at fifty-five of America’s largest and most prestigious campuses, found that college students overwhelmingly choose to censor themselves and others. And on first blush, Jewish students appear to support censorship more than non-Jewish students.

When asked if it is ever acceptable to remove flyers or advertisements for an upcoming speaker or campus event, 71% of surveyed Jewish students said that this could be acceptable, versus 63% of non-Jewish students. Blocking an entrance to a talk was also endorsed by a higher proportion of Jewish students (42% versus 37%), as was shouting down a speaker to prevent others from hearing (69% versus 61%). The small consolation is that only 18% of Jewish students believed that using violence to stop a speech or event on campus was ever acceptable. That even 18% of Jewish students approve of such violence is extremely troubling (though non-Jewish students are equally approving).

There are certainly types of speech that are unacceptable: The First Amendment, for example, does not protect defamation, vandalism, incitement, true threats, or assault. But while in most cases removing flyers, blocking entrances, shouting down speakers, and engaging in violence in order to prevent a speaker from being heard is not protected by the First Amendment, many forms of anti-Semitism fall into the category of protected speech. Nonetheless, according to these data, both Jewish and non-Jewish students express a significant impulse to silence views they don’t like.

But Jewish students are often the targets of this silencing. So, shouldn’t we expect Jewish students to be advocates of open and rigorous debate –– especially since these are foundational to Jewish culture?

The FIRE data reveal that politically liberal students are generally less tolerant of speech they find offensive than moderate or conservative students are. And although the proportion of Jewish students in college is small relative to non-Jewish students (they make up only 2.5% of the survey’s sample), the proportion of Jewish students who are liberal (71%) is far higher than among non-Jewish students (51%).

But liberal Jewish students appear slightly more willing to censor than their liberal, non-Jewish peers. Forty-seven percent of liberal non-Jewish students say that it is sometimes acceptable to block an entrance to an event, compared to 51% of Jewish liberal students. Roughly three-quarters of non-Jewish liberal students say that it is sometimes acceptable to remove flyers (76%) and to shout down a speaker (76%), whereas 82% and 80% of Jewish liberal students (respectively) say that it is sometimes acceptable to do those things.

Maybe one reason these liberal Jewish students support these tactics is because self-identified liberal students increasingly believe that their campuses should be a place where they are not exposed to intolerant or offensive ideas. And liberal Jewish students have been exposed to plenty. 2019 saw the highest level of anti-Semitic incidents across the country in the forty years since tracking such incidents began.

Students whose Jewish identity includes Zionism have been subjected to an increasingly hostile campus climate. According to AMCHA, in 2019, incidents involving public shaming, vilifying, or defaming a student or staff member because of their perceived association with Israel increased by 67%; shutting down or impeding Israel-related speech, movement, or assembly increased by 69%; the unfair treatment or exclusion of students because of their perceived association with Israel increased by 51%. And challenges to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism increased by 370%. This movement to diminish what counts as anti-Semitism is rapidly gaining momentum on campus, and according to the report, is strongly linked to the harassment of Jewish students. It is no coincidence that this is happening at a time of rising leftist illiberalism on campus, which too often accepts anti-Jewish bigotry –– either out of anti-Semitism or ignorance. This puts the physical safety of Jews on campus at risk.

Historically, economic downturns and pandemics are associated with increased anti-Semitism. Just this month, Morton Schapiro, the Jewish president of Northwestern University –– who has in the past praised even violent student protesters–– became the target of ugly and potentially anti-Semitic protests. Student protesters, some of whom had engaged in vandalism and arson earlier that evening, stood outside his home in the middle of the night chanting, “f*ck you, Morty” and calling him “piggy Morty.”

“The latter comes dangerously close to a longstanding trope against observant Jews like myself,” he wrote in a letter on Northwestern’s website. “Whether it was done out of ignorance or out of antisemitism, it is completely unacceptable.” The question of ignorance or anti-Semitism was also raised this month, when the New York Times chose to publish an op-ed that mentioned Louis Farrakhan by name no less than seven times without a single mention of his virulent anti-Semitism.

Glossing over anti-Semitism encourages anti-Jewish bigotry. Consider what happened in Durham in 2018, when the city propagated the anti-Jewish conspiracy theory that U.S. police are being trained in inhumane policing tactics by the Israeli army (IDF). Despite there having been no discussions about –– much less plans for –– the Durham police to interact in any way with the military of Israel or any other foreign countries, the city proposed and then passed a resolution banning the Durham police from training with the Israeli military.

They are banned from training with no other country’s military.

Minister Rafiq Zaidi Muhammed, a self-proclaimed “follower of the honorable Minister Farrakhan in the Nation of Islam,” thanked the Durham City Council “because the move that you have made to approve this petition was one against forces that are unseen. There’s a synagogue of Satan,” he explained, “that’s always lingering in the background.” Toward the end of his speech, he expressed that his words might be criticized “by some.” But, he added, “I am obligated to point out the inordinate control that some Jews have over the political system in this city.”

Two weeks later, anti-Jewish posters began appearing in Durham.

The marriage between supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement and Black Lives Matter supporters plays on old anti-Jewish conspiracy theories: secret Jewish control (“forces that are unseen”) and hidden, evil power (Israeli military training police to behave in inhumane ways). This leaves Jewish targets of anti-Semitism and non-Jewish bystanders afraid to speak up for fear of being labeled racists –– as Rose Ritch was. When even the New York Times is silent about the bigotry of one of the world’s most notorious anti-Semites, the ability to silence anti-Jewish sentiment can seem very tempting.

But we must not give in to that temptation.

There are some bright spots. Perhaps because of the Talmudic tradition of written disagreement, a higher proportion of liberal Jewish students are willing to write articles expressing their views (70%) than non-Jewish liberal students (61%). And a slightly higher proportion of non-liberal Jewish students are willing to write op-eds than are non-liberal non-Jewish students (53% compared to 51%).

What is most striking, however, is how non-liberal Jewish students relate to freedom of expression. This is the group most likely to self-censor. Seventy-three percent of non-liberal Jewish students said that they could recall a time during college when they did not share their perspective for fear of how others would respond (compared to 66% of non-Jewish non-liberal students, 60% of non-Jewish liberal students, and 51% of liberal Jewish students). Non-liberal Jewish students were also the least likely to endorse censoring behaviors. Only 12% thought it was ever acceptable to use violence, 24% thought blocking an entrance was ever acceptable, 41% agreed that shouting down a speaker was acceptable, and 45% said that removing flyers was acceptable. These numbers are all too high, but the difference is stark.

Jewish students, whether liberal, moderate, or conservative, must demand and defend viewpoint diversity, not work toward shutting down speech. Censorship is an illiberal tendency, not a liberal one. As John Stuart Mill knew, “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”

Jewish students, whether liberal, moderate, or conservative, must demand and defend viewpoint diversity, not work toward shutting down speech.

We should laud Morton Schapiro for how he responded to the recent violence and vandalism on his campus. He highlighted anti-Jewish speech and explained why it was an example of anti-Semitism, and also wrote that Northwestern “firmly supports vigorous debate and the free expression of ideas — abiding principles that are fundamental for our University.” While defending activism, he condemned, “in the strongest possible terms, the overstepping of the protesters. They have no right to menace members of our academic and surrounding communities… we have moved well past legitimate forms of free speech.” Shapiro concluded by reminding students of the consequences for engaging in acts that do not represent protected speech. “An essential aspect of education is the discernment of actions and consequences. If you, as a member of the Northwestern community, violate rules and laws, I am making it abundantly clear that you will be held accountable.”

This balanced approach is exactly what we need. As uncomfortable as it is, Jewish students –– along with the rest of us –– must support a culture of discourse rather than working to shut down speech. The intention to interfere with others’ freedom of expression must end, even when those expressions are manifestly anti-Semitic. But we must not, ourselves, be silent in the face of anti-Semitism, even when it comes from people with whom we share other concerns.

As Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, we avert evil through education, not silencing. We expose falsehoods and fallacies through discussion, not censorship. Even when confronting falsehoods that comprise a historically pervasive and widespread evil –– anti-Jewish bigotry and conspiracy theories –– “the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

Samuel J. Abrams is professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Pamela Paresky is Senior Scholar at the Network Contagion Research Institute and a visiting senior research associate at the University of Chicago’s Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge.