December 20, 2023

The insanity and Jew-hatred that have been on display since Oct. 7 have taught every American Jew that we must fight for our rights with as much energy and resourcefulness as we have fought for the rights of others in the past. In this fight, a central tool is the legal system.

Jewish students on college campuses are being subjected to bullying acts intended to intimidate and harass them because of their actual or imagined support for Israel. Thankfully, there are legal tools available which can and must be used to assert and defend the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty.

This essay will serve as a primer for the use of those legal tools by focusing on one key question: What kind of legal claims can be brought and against whom?

Like all Americans, Jews are entitled to protection from discrimination. The most robust anti-discrimination laws are usually those passed at the state and local level. State human relations commissions and other local bodies are usually more directly responsive to community demands. This means they typically include more protected categories of populations. Protected categories are identifiable groups of people who share a common characteristic which is vulnerable to discrimination.  Some of those identifiable groups are given special legal protection, although not all anti-discrimination laws provide protection for all the same categories. Among the categories protected  are ethnicity, shared ancestry and national origin — all of which cover Jews. Under most anti-discrimination laws religion is considered a protected class, but that isn’t the case for the federal anti-discrimination law which covers education: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This impediment was a real obstacle until recently, when Jews and Muslims were both recognized as being protected as members of an ethnic group or through shared ancestry.

Also at the Federal level, of course, is the U.S. Constitution. Jewish students are entitled to equal protection under the law.  For example, if a university forbids Jewish associations from engaging in a particular behavior, it must forbid that same behavior by any other religious group or face formal complaints. Unless relief is granted, it can be sued. If an arm of the government — or the recipient of federal funds — favors students who belong to any other religion over that of Jews, that makes a viable First Amendment/Free Exercise of Religion claim.

Jewish students and teachers and professors who claim that a hostile environment has been created and permitted to be maintained against Jews have successfully invoked this protection.  Enforcing the rules against Jews while ignoring violations of the same rules by people calling for the death of Jews is an insidious way to maintain a hostile environment for Jews and for Zionists. That is actionable under Title VI and such a claim can be brought in court by a private litigant such as a student at the affected institution, or by the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.  But there are still other avenues to pursue this claim.

Jewish teachers and administrators can sue for employment discrimination.  Every ethnic, gender-based or religious group in American knows it has the right to go to court when employers, superiors or colleagues attack them because of their gender, religion or ethnicity.  As Bill Ackman – one of the prominent philanthropists who threatened to pull his millions from his Ivy League alma mater – has said, everyone would know the law had been violated if people held a public demonstration and cried “Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa” – calling for a repeat of the racist riot in that city in 1921 during which up to 300 African-Americans were murdered by their own countrymen.

Why then are cries for “Intifada, Intifada, Intifada” met with anything less than the same outrage?  And if cries for the murder of Jews are condoned or ignored rather than being publicly damned and compelled to stop, the institutions that tolerate such racism and discrimination are vulnerable to legal action.

One recently unsheathed weapon against Jews, which can create a wrenching experience for those subject to it, is when colleges use academic disciplinary proceedings to punish Jews and advocates for Israel.  People who speak up for Israel are being accused of harassing the enemies of the Jewish State simply by stating their positions in public.

Accusing Jewish students of violating rights by speaking the truth is another example of discrimination that is ripe for legal action. One graduate student I currently represent was charged with the “offense” of telling Hamas supporters who justified the Oct. 7th atrocities as “resistance” that they support baby killers.  To any well-informed reader of news from the Middle East since Oct. 7, this is obviously true.  But it was found to violate the university’s rule against “behavior which causes a serious disturbance of the University’s community or infringes upon the rights and well-being of others.”  The accusation was made by people who accused my client of supporting “genocide” by the Israeli army and the State of Israel. But the latter statement – obviously false – was not even viewed as problematic.

In another case, a professor I represent is accused of the “crime” of disagreeing with students advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza.  This too is charged as a form of harassment.  If found guilty, my client, a tenured professor, could be forced out of work.

These are clearly biased applications of university ethics rules. They are, by themselves, a form of discrimination, even if the result of the proceeding is not outright dismissal.  That needs to be attacked as such in court.

It is the Jews — not the Jew-hating professors — who need to be talking about academic freedom on American campuses, and about their right to speak about what they believe is true.

Denunciation of Jews for holding Jewish ideas, or for defending the Jewish people and Israel, is also legally indefensible. When a student at Yale submitted a story to the Yale Daily accurately describing Hamas’s actions in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, the paper edited out the facts and published the piece with the disclaimer that it had been revised to remove “unsubstantiated” claims that Hamas had raped and murdered Israelis. By accusing the student writer of publishing unsubstantiated rumors, the paper defamed its reporter. The Yale Daily issued a correction the next day retracting this baseless charge.  Had it not done so, a lawsuit would have been the right response.

Virtually everyone in America implicitly accepts banning certain words and phrases that are hurtful or deemed threatening to certain minority groups. At least as a practical matter if not as a legal certainty, for example, no one has the right to use the N-word in any academic institution.  Why then is it considered “free speech” for marchers to intone the eliminationist chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free” or the call for “Jihad” and to “Globalize the Intifada” – which effectively mean the murder of Jews?

The Biden Department of Education has recognized that Jews share an ethnic commitment to the land of Israel as the home of the Jewish people. Calling for the death or removal of Jews from “Palestine,” wherever that is and whatever its borders might someday be – is calling for the death of Jews.  You can’t get more antisemitic than that.

But here’s the rub: Jews have not yet been conditioned, and perhaps they don’t yet believe in their kishkes that they are entitled to demand the respect and the rights accorded all other American ethnic groups.

I have spoken to numerous Jewish parents and students since Oct. 7, many of whom know they are being victimized unfairly but still recoil at the idea of pressing their civil rights as Jews.  I remind them of a time before there were civil rights laws protecting Black Americans as an essential part of the American legal system.  Then, in the decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, brave Black American students, and their equally brave lawyers and allies, brought case after case into the courts and demanded, initially without winning but still without surcease, that American courts dispense justice to those demanding it and to which they were entitled as Americans.

The same must be true now for Jews. It is no longer enough to be smug about the strongly worded letter to the editor or the public condemnations or the retreat to hand-wringing in chat groups. It is time for Jews to take the legal gloves off and demand respect for their people and security for themselves and their children.

Both sides of the equation have to change – both the law and the Jews.  The law must become the same for the Jews as it is for everyone else. And Jewish students, with their families behind them, must now demand that their civil rights be respected just as are those of every other ethnic group. Harassment of Jewish students cannot be tolerated. Educating Jewish and non-Jewish students that the Jewish State is engaged in genocide is a race libel and no Jewish child or adult student should be forced to study in a school where this defamation is spread.

Denouncing Jews as a category of privileged whites who are oppressors also cannot go unchallenged, just as it can no longer be acceptable for Jews, who lived as a sovereign Jewish nation in the land of Israel for a thousand years, to be denounced as colonializing invaders of their own home.

Here is the hard reality:  Unless Jews everywhere are prepared to stop accepting the treatment that has, until now, been meted out by academia, things will only get worse. There will be more wild anti-Israel mobs like the ones pounding on the doors of the library for access to the Jewish students at The Cooper Union. Cooper Union staff who appear in the video of the attack did nothing to dispel the protesters who had permission to march outside, but not inside, the building. Instead, the school chose to barricade the Jews inside, just out of reach, but not out of sight or sound of the throng braying for their heads. Stunningly, the Jews were offered the “opportunity” to hide in the library’s attic.  No word on whether they were also offered copies of Anne Frank’s diary to read while they were there.

This outrageous scenario is a vivid portrait of academic administrators acting out of fear of a violent, rule-breaking mob.  Cooper Union utterly failed to fulfill its duty to protect its Jewish students.  That must be called out. And it cannot go unpunished.  Punishment will only come when legal provisions requiring the Jews’ protection, and their right to equal enforcement of the law, are raised and then enforced in court.

Every Jew who is victimized by this form of hatred must fight back.  The law is a crucial weapon in that fight.  We must learn to wield it and go boldly into the courts and fight, for our students and for our people.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the legal director of The Deborah Project, a public interest law firm that asserts and defends the civil rights of Jews facing discrimination in educational settings. 

They are now the smirks seen ‘round the world. Three leading university presidents arrogantly, dismissively, explained that Harvard, MIT and UPenn students could freely call “for the genocide of Jews” and it wouldn’t even be a microaggression, “depending on the context.” 

Outsiders think these leaders let their institutions down. Even if you agree that freedom of speech allows people to say awful things, and even if you understand that context matters, their academic callousness and hypocrisy were unforgivable. It was bad enough that the presidents showed no empathy for the many Jewish students who feel threatened by calls for Jewish genocide. But all three institutions have cancelled professors and students for far milder transgressions. In short, this precious presidential “context” actually persecutes speakers when a favored “oppressed” group endures even microaggressions, while suddenly protecting wild speech when targeting those deemed “oppressors,” especially the “privileged” Jews, absorbing their deserved daily quotas of nano-aggressions.

In fact, these ambitious academic pols knew their haughtiness would play well on campus.  The “smirks” revealed that they were appealing to their key constituents, to the anti-colonial professors and Poisoned Ivy bureaucrats who risk turning these centers of learning into moral cesspools of totalitarian indoctrination, especially in the humanities and social sciences.

The smirks were the smirks that helped elect Donald Trump, sure that Representative Elise Stefanik, a mere “deplorable,” could never outsmart them, just like a buffoonish Trump would never win. They were the smirks of those who, as soon as Trump and Ron DeSantis attacked “wokeness,” defined being woke far-too-benignly, as just wanting to treat everyone equally, while simultaneously denying it existed. 

And they were the smirks of the academic racketeers, these gatekeepers guarding access to America’s most cherished credentials, who have executed the greatest bait-and-switch in educational history. Decades ago, it was corrupt enough: Parents paid thousands, thinking they were buying the best teachers for their kids, while we professors were hired based on research skills not classroom effectiveness. Today, parents pay hundreds of thousands, while donors fork over tens of millions, thinking they are buying the best liberal education for their kids, fostering critical thought. However, many professors now are hired based on fealty to one particular ideology, which they impose in the classroom. How odd. Millions of parents collectively pay billions so their children can be bullied into buying an anti-American, Marxist-infused ideology demeaning those who can afford the insane tuition bills these very institutions charge. No wonder this scam’s beneficiaries keep smirking.

And no wonder over 700 Harvard faculty members supported President Claudine Gay and she kept her job, despite doing more reputational damage to Harvard in her short presidency than any of her predecessors in Harvard’s 400-year history, as the donor-activist Bill Ackman bristled. No wonder The Chronicle of Higher Education cheered, saying “the presidents couldn’t answer yes or no,” because “they behaved liked academics” and “that’s a good thing.” Apparently, “their visions … conjure colleges as oases of enlightened society … places where expression does not lead to oppression.”  

The Harvard Corporation didn’t fire Claudine Gay because she is doing what she was hired to do. Her thin scholarly resume is balanced by a thick commitment to the “Anti-Racism” ideology that, like the more popularly-targeted anti-colonial mindset, also rotates on the simplistic, Marxist, oppressed-versus-oppressor axis. 

Note, Anti-Racism is not the same as opposing racism or all bigotry. “Anti-Racism” is the vision Ibram X. Kendi popularized in his blockbuster “How to be an Anti-Racist.” The strategy, propagated now in many leading high schools, let alone universities, stresses outcomes not attitudes, while demanding total submission. Kendi explains: “there is no neutrality in the racist struggle. The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist’ … One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist … One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.’”

Such absolutism pervades Claudine Gay’s post-George Floyd August 20, 2020 memo, recently posted on X by the author C. Bradley Thomson. Serving as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Dr. Gay proclaimed: “Our engagement in anti-racist action and the infusion of inclusive practices into all aspects of our teaching and research mission reflect a new sense of institutional responsibility and will require sustained effort over time … The work of racial justice is not a one-time project. We must be relentless, constructively critical, and action-oriented in our pursuit to build the thriving, more equitable FAS we all deserve.” This memo apparently helped propel Gay into Harvard’s presidency.

In the traditional university, her memo’s call for “Inclusive Excellence” would express a subtle blending of two values which most Americans now accept: Keeping standards high while broadening the faculty to incorporate more diverse perspectives and welcome still-highly-qualified but traditionally under-represented minorities. 

Alas, in today’s antiracist university, “inclusive excellence,” works about as well as “meritocratic nepotism.” Especially at the insistence of the multi-billion-dollar DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusivity) Complex, inclusivity keeps trumping excellence. Hiring committees define professors by the group they belong to not the accomplishments they achieved. It’s the same Manichean oppressed-versus-oppressor mentality that decides that threatening members of certain groups is never acceptable, while menacing others is somehow OK, depending on the context, of course. 

In this struggle, beware cheap victories. Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania may have resigned, but the ideological and moral rot runs deeper. A generation of professors now views scholarship as advocacy, treating the lecture podium as a political platform.  This goes far beyond who gets hired or promoted. Most scholarly associations have turned anti-racist, anti-colonial and thus activist. That means that anyone seeking letters of recommendations, searching for jobs or hoping for prizes must embrace the reigning ideology.

The American Sociological Association proclaims: “As a national association, we place value on dismantling power inequalities.” Declaring racism “systemic,” it explains that “Anti-racism education lays bare these systemic inequities, which is a critical step in understanding how to move toward a more just society.” The American Studies Association (ASA), whose bylaws claim that “The association is organized exclusively for education and academic study purposes,” nevertheless had its Executive Committee issue a biased Statement on Gaza. It emphasized that “ASA continues to stand with the Palestinian people and their ongoing struggle for liberation” and “calls on the U.S. to end support of Israeli apartheid and work toward negotiations.” Racializing this national conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the statement declares:  “Our struggles as Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples are real, and they connect us … The Palestinian struggle is also the struggle for global Black solidarity in our collective liberation.”

Naturally, the National Women’s Studies Association, which has traditionally seen its professors as “feminist educators” working “to transform … the society at large,” and declared in May 2021 that “Palestinian solidarity is a feminist issue,” has silently consented to Hamas’s mass rape. It had no comment about Hamas’s perverse breakthrough in mounting the largest, most-self-publicized, campaign of gendered violence in history on October 7. 

Amid their two recent calls for Israel to end its “genocidal war on Gaza,” these pick-and-choose feminists acknowledged that “violence and war often inflict gendered and sexualized harms on women and queer, trans and non-binary people.” But by Oct. 11, they insisted that “The current escalation must be viewed in the context of decades of illegal Israeli military occupation and systemic violent campaigns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. To end the violence, its root causes must be addressed.”

These Victimization Olympics help no one, this addiction to grievance must end. The DEI regime should be dismantled, not enhanced. Jews don’t need special status – we all need to return to an academic liberalism that seeks to treat everyone equally as individuals.

In this environment, those fighting Jew-hatred should not lobby for Jews, or even Israelis, to become one of the favored groups, swept up in DEI bureaucrats’ ever-growing maw. These Victimization Olympics help no one, this addiction to grievance must end. The DEI regime should be dismantled, not enhanced. Jews don’t need special status – we all need to return to an academic liberalism that seeks to treat everyone equally as individuals.

The Poisoned Ivy League will not be fixed easily or quickly. It took decades since the 1960s of identity politics, assaults on Western Civ and the canon, of political correctness, postmodernism, decolonization theory, intersectionality, Wokeness, and anti-racism, for this revolution to succeed. A full-fledged assault will fail. 

A partisan fight will also fail. A New York Times article shortly after Liz Magill resigned framed the problem in ways that will doom the necessary counterattack. Headlines proclaiming “As Fury Erupts Over Campus Antisemitism, Conservatives Seize the Moment,” return the conversation to the polarization seen during Trump’s tenure. Disgust with Trump neutralized any restraints as the universities veered Woke. Most Ivy League parents and alumni are Democrats. Especially with the Republican Party still going full-MAGA, few of them wish to give any conservatives a victory.

The battle to save America’s universities must be framed around non-partisan issues. These include improving the quality of student life, fighting educational malpractice and preserving liberal democratic values.

The battle to save America’s universities must be framed around non-partisan issues. These include improving the quality of student life, fighting educational malpractice, preserving liberal democratic values, and protecting the particular school’s brand while justifying the liberal arts themselves.

Donors, parents, and students should try shrinking the problem, while creating centers of scholarly integrity. You shrink the problem by attacking educational malpractice, asking if students feel comfortable in the classroom disagreeing with others, and if professors offer a range of views, while also emphasizing the quality of the teaching more broadly. You shrink the problem by creating forums for students to complain if they feel bullied politically in class, let alone physically or emotionally, by faculty and fellow students. You shrink the problem by insisting that schools start reducing their DEI bureaucracies as part of a broader reduction of academic administrators, to cut costs while focusing on student-faculty ratios.  Forbes recently reported that between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals” soared “by 164% and 452%, respectively, as the number of students only grew by 78% and the number of instructors grew by 92%.

Because credential-obsessed American parents remain addicted to the college brands, it’s time to start sending students to institutions that may be less prestigious but are less doctrinaire too. Over time, universities’ reputations can be burnished by careful investment, broader recruitment, and ambitious leadership.

Meanwhile, in every major university, donors should offer to endow one center for liberal education, an honors college of sorts, with a binding contract serving as a charter guaranteeing a focus on nonpartisan liberal ideals – and a commitment to teaching critical thought. With donors’ help, academics working in these centers may need to establish their own ecosystem: fellowships, prizes, a scholarly association truly committed to scholarly pursuits. 

In the 1980s, conservative intellectuals fled the university and created a network of think tanks. In doing so, they abandoned the campus – and the students – to the decolonizing fanatics.  Campuses must be saved, one new center at a time, dedicated to excellence, critical thought, clear writing, broad reading, and open discussion.

At the same time, Jewish parents should also start looking to gap year programs in Israel that at least help inoculate their children for a year before plunging into the academic indoctrination camps, or Israeli universities as four-year alternatives. More gap year programs should focus on academic excellence and teaching liberal arts, in addition to fostering Jewish identity and offering positive Israel experiences. 

Donors in the Diaspora and administrators in Israel must beef up Israel’s English-language offerings, especially in the humanities and social science. While actually improving the quality, they also should launch PR campaigns improving the brands of Israeli universities. The target should be ambitious American Jewish parents and the broader American community that hires graduates. 

I take no joy in watching the campuses explode and the Ivy League brand get singed. I am a case of arrested development: I got to university when I was 18 and never left. Many of us have watched the problems fester – and saw our warnings ignored. 

For others, the Congressional hearing – parts of which have been watched over 1 billion times – was a wake-up call. It’s time to get radical. The problems are, ahem, systemic. But America’s need for a robust higher education system, where students learn to think deeply, engage respectfully, and disagree constructively, is greater than ever. We owe it to our students to succeed – we owe it to ourselves, too.

Professor Gil Troy, a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the JPPI, the Global Think Tank of the Jewish People, is an American presidential historian, and, most recently, the editor of the three-volume set, Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson commanded Jews to be joyful. By combatting brutally tough times with joy and happiness, we can spread light and defeat darkness. In the wake of the Oct. 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, there has been plenty of pain. Yet this most recent Festival of Lights brought plenty of joyous occurrences. Eight days and nights of good news made Hanukkah 2023 memorable and meaningful.

On Hanukkah Night 1, Dec. 7th, the Biden administration removed the Council on American Islamic Relations from its antisemitism strategy. Marginalizing CAIR deprives them of media oxygen at a time when the information war for hearts and minds is critical. Dec.7th was also Pearl Harbor Day. It was especially nice to see Jewish Pearl Harbor heroes given tributes. Oct. 7th and Pearl Harbor allowed the world to see heroism in the toughest of circumstances.

On Hanukkah Night 2, Dec. 8th, the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire. This veto was critical in giving Israel valuable time to carry out military operations. This veto was a clear message to the fringe left that America is still a pro-Israel nation.

On Hanukkah Night 3, Dec. 9th, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned under pressure. During a disastrous appearance before a House committee on antisemitism, Magill would not admit that calls for genocide against Jews violated UPenn’s standards. Those opposed to campus antisemitism are finally fighting back.  Meanwhile, Dec. 9th was a triumph for the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. BBYO’s Global Shabbat brought together 16,000 teenagers from 30 countries to spread the joy of Shabbat. Many young Jews in the face of antisemitic attacks are choosing to become more Jewish.

On Hanukkah Night 4, Dec. 10th, the National Football League allowed teams and players to show their support for Israel. Minnesota Vikings owner Ziggy Wilf is the son of Holocaust survivors. He enthusiastically allowed his placekicker Greg Joseph to wear special sneakers during the game. Normally covered in purple and gold, Joseph wore blue and white sneakers promoting Leket Israel humanitarian aid. Leket Israel is the National Food Bank and the leading food rescue organization in Israel. After 58 minutes of scoreless football, Joseph’s field goal in the final two minutes gave the Vikings a 3-0 victory.

On Hanukkah Night 5, Dec. 11th, Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem declared the week of Dec. 11th to be “Shine a Light, Breaking Bread Week.” Governor Noem previously declared Nov. 28, 2021 as “Antisemitism Awareness Week” and proclaimed Feb. 24, 2022 “Israel Relations Day.” Plenty of governors around the country have taken similar actions of solidarity since the Oct. 7th attacks.

On Hanukkah Night 6, Dec. 12th, fantastic fundraising numbers came in. In the two months since the attacks, the Jewish Federation of North America tallied over 700 million dollars in donations. That money gets spread around to over 300 supportive organizations including Chabad, Magen David Adom, United Hatzalah and others. This does not include many more millions of dollars raised by the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces.

On Hanukkah Night 7, Dec. 13th, the IDF officially began flooding Hamas’s underground tunnels with seawater. This bold strategy forces Hamas terrorists out of the tunnels and above ground. Even the early stages of flooding the tunnels have led to some Hamas terrorists surrendering and others reaching above ground long enough to be eliminated. Dec. 13th also made history on Wall Street. For the first time ever, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 37,000. Wall Street leans pro-Israel. The more money Jewish traders make, the more they do give back to Jewish causes.

On Hanukkah Night 8, Dec. 14th, Miami lit up blue and white. Chabad of Downtown Miami and others arranged Jewish Heritage Night with the Miami Heat. Several thousand Jews descended on the Kaseya Center Arena. Kosher food was everywhere. Dancing rabbis were on the jumbotron. After the first quarter, the entire crowd cheered a courtside Menorah lighting. Halftime featured a Jewish music concert. The 12 to 15 minute halftime was also enough time for attendees to daven Maariv. After one final mourner’s Kaddish, it was back inside the arena for the second half.

It is vital to remember that Hanukkah is a joyful celebration of Jewish triumph over anti-Jewish evil. Hanukkah 2023 brought joy and triumph to Jews through sports, education, and military matters. As 2024 approaches, opportunities to keep that positive momentum going are everywhere. Chabad of Lauderhill barely finished Hanukkah before beginning their Hey Teves Farbrengen. Judaism never stops. Nor should it.

Eric Golub is a retired stockbrokerage and oil professional living in Los Angeles.