Enthusiastic Antisemitism at the University of Washington

When supporters of Hamas vandalized the home and car of University of Washington (UW) President Ana Mari Cauce during the night of Nov. 13-14, spray-painting “Ana Mari is complicit in genocide” on her car, it became clear that antisemitism is present not only on the UW campus but well beyond its borders. The vandalism represents a significant escalation in the conflict that has plagued the UW since Oct. 7, 2023, exemplifying the rising wave of antisemitism spreading across college campuses in the United States.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel–killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 more — provoked an immediate response on the UW Seattle campus — dramatic expressions of hostility to Israel, and, soon enough, to Jews. As the academic year proceeded, the attacks got worse, including, according to the subsequently appointed UW Antisemitism Task Force, “protests, offensive and sometimes biased communications distributed by various university units, offensive and sometimes violent rhetoric, graffiti, vandalism, and a protracted tent encampment,” all directed at Israel and Jews.  There were calls for Jews to “go back to the gas chambers,” posters saying “f**k off Zionists,” and graffiti such as “end Israel” and “kill your local colonizer.” Professors and teaching assistants attacked Israel in class, encouraged participation in anti-Israel protests, and harassed Jewish students. Many Jewish (including Israeli) faculty and staff experienced bias, social exclusion, and harassment on the job.

In response, President Cauce established two taskforces in March of this year — one on antisemitism and the other on Islamophobia — charged with assessing “how students, faculty, and staff, are experiencing discrimination or harassment because they are Jewish and/or Palestinian, Middle Eastern, or Muslim” and assessing to what degree they felt the campus to be supportive and welcoming. Data collection in May included a university-wide survey of students, faculty, and staff, along with focus groups within each of the affected communities; 6,700 members of the UW community responded to the survey, and 51 participated in focus groups.

The Antisemitism Task Force discovered – to the surprise of no one who had been paying attention – that antisemitism had been experienced by Jewish faculty, students, and staff for a long time, increasing gradually until the dramatic escalation after Oct. 7. According to the survey, most Jewish students felt that the UW was an unsafe environment for people with their identities. Two-thirds of (non-Israeli) Jewish student respondents “felt compelled to hide their Jewish identity,” as did 95% of Israeli student respondents. Sixty percent of Jewish student respondents felt unwelcome in campus spaces, as did 92% of Israeli student respondents. 

The Task Force concluded that it was not only intense feelings about the war between Hamas and Israel that created a campus climate hostile to Jews. The UW administration itself bore considerable responsibility for the campus’s “widespread, systemic, and institutionalized” antisemitism. It not only permitted antisemitism to flourish but normalized it; ignored its own rules for campus conduct; and allowed Jews to be attacked in ways unthinkable were any other group the victim.

The Antisemitism Task Force, having identified the UW itself as a key enabler of antisemitism, made recommendations urging the UW to do what it should have been doing all along – create a committee to monitor antisemitism, enforce its own rules about behavior on campus, promote campus safety by establishing reasonable regulations concerning time, place, and manner for protests, commit to civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas, put faculty on notice that they may not use their positions to disrespect and intimidate Jewish students, and require antisemitism education for DEI professionals and others responsible for the quality of student life.

The first public response, published the day after the Task Force report, came in the form of an open letter, “UW Jewish Community Response to the UW Campus Antisemitism Task Force Report.” The initial signatories — the self-described “UW Jewish Community” —  included nine Jewish faculty members, two staff, and two graduate students. The most recent version of the letter I can find adds 145 signatures, including 24 more faculty and 64 identified solely as alumni.

The “community response” is very critical of the report. The critics fear that the report “will be used as a pretext to attack EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) committees across campuses”; “it will erode shared governance”; it will prevent them from criticizing “the historical and contemporary practices of Zionism as a settler project rooted in Jewish ethnonational supremacy [which] are in conflict with principles of democracy and equality.” These are serious accusations. The Task Force report, however, never proposes any such things.

Underlying the critics’ specific claims are, I think, three fundamental concerns. First, they believe that though they are anti-Zionist, they are not antisemites. Second, their views don’t get the attention and respect they deserve. And third, they feel they are under attack. 

Zionism before 1948 meant support for the creation of a Jewish state. Since Israel came into being, Zionism has meant support for its continued existence. Anti-Zionism, thus, necessarily proposes that Israel cease to exist. Today’s most prominent anti-Zionists are Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and their supporters. Under the circumstances, claiming that that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism seems more than a little peculiar, but the critics of the Task Force report are quite insistent about it.

The critics condemn the Task Force report for its lack of attention to what they call “viewpoint diversity”–that is, to their views, which surely, they believe, are widely shared. Their views are indeed shared, but not so widely–according to the survey, 7% of Jewish faculty and staff and 18% of Jewish students held anti-Zionist views. These numbers are not trivial, but they hardly suggest that Jewish anti-Zionists are getting less attention than they deserve. 

Finally, the critics believe they are under attack. They are merely anti-Zionists, yet some people insist they are antisemites. They spend their time demonizing Israel in a wide range of venues, yet somehow they are “not free to criticize a modern state or debate … Zionism.” They have been “negatively impacted by the weaponization of antisemitism to stifle legitimate debate.” They are even “being bullied by others in the Jewish community.” They are not getting the accolades they deserve for calling Zionism “a settler project rooted in Jewish ethnonational supremacy,” and it hurts. 

Three weeks after the publication of the Antisemitism and Islamophobia Task Force reports, the UW responded. Perhaps not surprisingly, the response did not address the accusations that the UW itself was responsible for much of the antisemitism so publicly displayed on campus. 

But the UW does commit itself to taking action. It commits itself to “upholding the law and University policies,” enforcing time, place, and manner regulations regarding protests, cultivating civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas, and providing an educational environment free of discrimination. This seems great; yet if the UW needs to publicly proclaim that it will obey the law, something must have been amiss. We can hope that the UW will follow through on its commitments, but also ask why, if the UW reneged on its obligations previously, it won’t do so again.  

The university did not agree to follow up on the task force’s proposal that a university committee on antisemitism and campus climate he appointed to monitor key performance indicators over time, nor did it agree to develop better antisemitism education for DEI staff and others responsible for protecting students. The UW mentions that this year’s new students were told during orientation sessions that antisemitic and Islamophobic discrimination are not allowed at the UW; but, we should ask, why the need to spell this out? What would the students be expecting otherwise?

Thus: the University of Washington permitted a “go back to the gas chambers” set of protests on campus for an entire academic year; the Antisemitism Task Force created to look into the explosion of antisemitic hatred has been attacked by a self-described “UW Jewish community” that does not represent the UW Jewish community; and the UW has promised to do in the future what it should have been doing in the past. We can only hope that the UW will take its commitments seriously. Perhaps the recent pro-Hamas off-campus vandalism will focus people’s minds.

Paul Burstein is professor of sociology, adjunct professor of political science, and Pruzan professor of Jewish Studies, emeritus, at the University of Washington.