July 24, 2025

The future of American education is at a crossroads: The ideals of “viewpoint diversity” and “academic freedom” increasingly conflict with rising antisemitism and the institutionalization of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

As the Trump administration purports to promote ideological diversity among faculty, critics passionately defend academic freedom. Rather than harmonizing, these principles are weaponized in political battles where they are not mutually exclusive but inherently aligned.

At this week’s Congressional hearing of the Education and Workforce Committee, titled “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology,” Representatives questioned the presidents of Georgetown University, UC Berkeley, and the City University of New York. Rep. Glenn Grothman raised concerns about ideological imbalance among university faculty, asking whether their departments reflect the ideological diversity of the broader American public. He specifically challenged the witnesses on whether it was problematic that up to 95% of faculty lean toward the progressive left, which animates contemporary antisemitism. The university presidents appeared largely untroubled by this ideological skew, so long as open debate was permitted on campus.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s testimony before the House Education Committee last month underscored the confusion, too. California Representative Mark Takano (D-CA) asked whether refusing to hire a Holocaust denier at Harvard constituted an ideological litmus test. McMahon dodged the question, citing Harvard’s termination of its Middle East Studies leadership.

These exchanges highlighted a deeper dilemma: a lack of a clear definition of viewpoint diversity and the limits of academic freedom.

Both concepts should be anchored in a shared, apolitical standard: The duty of care. This principle demands that professionals act with prudence to avoid harm. Any breach can form the basis for claims of negligence. The duty of care should be practiced by professors but ultimately enforced by administrators. After all, both students and faculty enter into contractual obligations with the university—through codes of conduct agreed upon at the time of enrollment and hiring.

The duty of care should be practiced by professors but ultimately enforced by administrators.

Abandoning duty of care has proven dangerous. Professors aligned with Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine are falsely accusing Israel of genocide and promoting narratives that depict Israelis as violent settler-colonial aggressors. These claims fuel demonstrations that often cross into antisemitic abuse—complete with Holocaust inversion, swastika-laced flags, and signs explicitly excluding Zionists, some 80% of Jews.

When politically charged teachings are masked as scholarship and left unchecked by administrators, a sanctioned atmosphere of hostility emerges. This hostility has extended beyond campuses and impacted our streets, as seen in the recent attacks in Boulder, Colorado and Washington, D.C.

Legitimizing the “Free Palestine” movement alongside Holocaust denial or revisionism reflects a serious breach of the duty of care. Neglecting it means allowing ideology to override academic integrity. Professors must provide accurate information, foster critical inquiry, and avoid foreseeable harm—responsibilities that administrators must enforce to maintain a safe learning environment.

Appointing a Holocaust denier to teach history at Harvard, or permitting the likes of Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, an outspoken Hamas sympathizer, to lecture on Zionism amounts to a blatant dereliction of that obligation. So too does the appointment of Ussama Makdisi—who wrote, “I could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7”—as the inaugural chair of a new endowed program on Palestinian and Arab Studies at UC Berkeley. That his colleagues made this decision based solely on his “academic standards,” as Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons stated, while disregarding his apparent sympathy for terror, is a stark example of how ideologically skewed the department has become, and how normalized such sympathies now are within it.

Invoking “viewpoint diversity” to suggest there are two sides to the Holocaust is not intellectual pluralism; it’s a clear distortion of historical fact. So is the misuse of academic freedom to advance fabrications like the baseless accusation of genocide leveled at Israel. Twisting facts to fit political ideology falls within the Federal Office of Research Integrity’s definition of research misconduct: “a significant, intentional, or reckless departure from accepted practices.”

Academic freedom, though vital to intellectual inquiry, is not without limits. It is not a shield for indoctrination, intimidation or discrimination. The American Association of University Professors holds that faculty must foster diverse perspectives and independent thought. They cannot indoctrinate through censorship, impose conclusions and dogma, or promote falsehoods as fact. Speech crossing into harassment or disrupting a student’s educational experience is not academic freedom.

The nostalgic appeal to an era of politically neutral universities under the banner of academic freedom ignores reality. Such neutrality never existed. Even before Oct. 7, academic freedom was selectively applied.

At George Washington University, a professor who fostered hostility toward Israeli students was shielded by academic freedom. Meanwhile, another professor was disciplined for quoting a statement by a Black author to prompt a class discussion. The result: a perverse inversion whereby incitement is protected, and genuine academic engagement is punished.

Faculty are not free to recklessly distort facts or harass students. As in the sciences, academic conclusions must be grounded in evidence and adhere to legal definitions. Fact is not subjective, and legal standards cannot be exempted as racial or political critique.

A duty of care framework that integrates viewpoint diversity and academic freedom enables educators to explore false ideas, such as conspiracy theories or historical revisionism, without endorsing them. Teaching about dangerous ideologies is imperative. Teaching from them is professional malpractice.

For educational reform to succeed, policymakers must affirm that viewpoint diversity demands fidelity in truth and intellectual honesty. Universities, in turn, must recognize that academic freedom is not a shield for dogma, but a privilege contingent on scholarly integrity and accountability. When subsumed under a duty of care, these values no longer clash. They complete each other.

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Sabrina Soffer presently works with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and is a recent graduate of the George Washington University.

Every year, more than 2,000 people die unhoused on the streets of Los Angeles. Today, over 72,000 people across the county live without stable shelter. According to a recent UCLA study, one in six people experiencing homelessness are victims of physical violence. And yet, despite the urgent crisis unfolding in our own backyards, it often feels like my fellow Angelenos have time to rally around every cause but this one.

Want to protest illegal ICE raids or mass deportations? Thousands show up within hours. Want to counter a presidential military parade with a “No Kings” march? People will drop everything to make signs and chant slogans. Think the Israeli government has made mistakes in its military response to a terror group that murdered civilians at a music festival? Protestors will block highways and drape provocative banners from overpasses.

I’m not opposed to activism—far from it. I share concerns about the cruelty of ICE tactics. I fear authoritarian overreach by our government. And while I take issue, as a Jew, with how pro-Palestinian rallies too often veer into anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric, I understand how chaotic images from a war zone could spark global outrage. Still, I can’t help but notice what’s missing. Where are the marches for our unhoused neighbors? Where is the sense of moral urgency for those living in tents, cars, and under freeways?

While homelessness in Los Angeles remains out of control, a recent point-in-time count showed a four percent decrease in the county’s homeless population—a second consecutive year of decline. That progress deserves recognition. But even with this modest drop, more people remain unhoused today than in 2022 and 2020 (no count was conducted in 2021 due to COVID). We cannot let slightly improved numbers justify growing desensitization. There was a time when this level of suffering would have moved people to organize protests or sit-ins. Now, the crisis is “managed” through talking points and spreadsheets, as though it were a PR challenge instead of a humanitarian emergency.

This issue isn’t abstract to me. I’ve seen it up close. Through Brentwood School, where I will be a junior this Fall, I volunteer with Feed The Streets, a nonprofit serving unhoused people on Skid Row. While I distribute meals and pass out clothes, the most important thing I do is listen. I’ve spoken with women whose lives were upended by trauma, abuse, and eviction. Most aren’t homeless because of “bad decisions.” They’re homeless because they ran out of options.

Yes, some people become homeless due to addiction, mental illness, or poor choices. But that shouldn’t determine whether they’re worthy of help. The reasons people end up on the street may vary. Our obligation to care for them does not. Everyone deserves safety, dignity, and compassion.

As a Fellow with the Jewish Center for Justice, I’ve learned how to turn empathy into action. JCJ’s mission to build a just society grounded in Jewish values reminds me that caring for the vulnerable isn’t just a mitzvah; it’s a mandate. In our tradition, we are called to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and love the stranger. That’s not politics. That’s Torah.

In our tradition, we are called to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and love the stranger. That’s not politics. That’s Torah.

What frustrates me most is seeing so many of my peers singularly focused on what’s happening 7,000 miles away while remaining silent about the suffering right in front of us. The war in Gaza understandably sparks emotion, debate, and disagreement. Homelessness, by contrast, is a problem we can actually solve.

We can protest. We can donate. We can volunteer. We can pressure our elected officials. But too many of us choose not to.

So here’s my plea: If you can march for climate justice, immigrant rights, or peace in the Middle East, bring that same passion to the streets of Los Angeles. Let’s build on the progress reflected in recent numbers and push for real, sustained solutions—not merely statistics that suggest we’re doing just enough.

We need more permanent supportive housing. We need wraparound mental services. We need safe emergency shelters for women and families. We need rent stabilization, tenant protections, and transitional programs that actually work.

But most of all, we need to remember that rampant homelessness is not normal. It is not inevitable. It is a crisis. And it deserves just as much outrage, organizing, and moral clarity as anything else we fight for.

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Jack Sampson is a Jewish Center for Justice Fellow and a rising junior at Brentwood School in Los Angeles.

The echoes of Nanking and October 7 demand that China reexamine its alliances and stand with Israel against barbarism.

The other night, my wife Debbie and I were guests of our dear friends Sir Clive and Lady Anya Gillinson at Carnegie Hall. Clive—who is like a brother to me—is the most accomplished head of a cultural institution anywhere on earth. Over more than two decades, he has transformed Carnegie Hall, already world-famous, into an unparalleled global supernova of live music who’s prestige is unchallenged, even in the greatest cultural Meccas of Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Milan.

The occasion was an unforgettable and inspiring concert by the National Youth Orchestra, created by Clive and Carnegie Hall, which is about to tour Asia—most notably China. In the “Presidential” box with us, as Clive’s personal guest, was the newly appointed Consul General of China in New York.

Last year, we had attended China’s own National Youth Orchestra’s performance at Carnegie Hall, which was indeed outstanding—although as an American, I will confess it was perhaps not quite as electrifying as our own. (I trust the Chinese people can forgive my patriotic bias.)

In our warm and brief conversation, I told the Consul General how deeply moved I am, as a Jew, an American, and a student of history, by the story of the Rape of Nanking in 1937. The atrocities that befell China in those months echo, almost uncannily, the horrors that the Jewish people—and especially Israeli women—endured on October 7 in the barbaric Hamas attack on the communities surrounding Gaza.

I write today not merely as a man of faith, but as a voice for those silenced by rape, terror, and ideological apathy. I call upon China’s leadership—and the conscience of every Chinese citizen—to recognize our shared past trauma, born of two of history’s most harrowing chapters: the Rape of Nanking and the October 7 massacre in Israel.

These twin horrors should unite our peoples—not only in mourning but in moral purpose.

Two Catastrophes, One Moral Imperative

Each event tore at the fabric of human dignity. Relative to the size of each nation’s population, the massacres in Nanking and southern Israel are chillingly comparable.

In Nanking, between December 1937 and March 1938, the Japanese Imperial Army unleashed an orgy of terror in China’s capital. Civilians were systematically hunted, executed, burned alive. And women—mothers, daughters, grandmothers—were violated on a scale that defies comprehension.

“They raped my sister and my mother in front of me. When my father protested, they shot him.” —Nanking survivor

Most camel victims were forced to “service” four to six Japanese soldiers daily; some who were particularly “attractive” endured 10 to 20 assaults per day. Japanese soldiers reportedly shoved poles into women’s vaginas “to see how far they would go” and stuffed burning cotton into their private parts, igniting them from within. Babies were bayoneted. Pregnant women were disemboweled. Conservative estimates place the death toll above 200,000; rape victims numbered anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000.

Now consider October 7, 2023. On that horrific morning, Hamas terrorists stormed southern Israel—attacking music festivals, kibbutzim, and family homes. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children were massacred. More than 250 were taken hostage. And like Nanking, sexual violence was not incidental but strategic and systemic.

A UN investigation found “clear and convincing” evidence of systemic sexual violence by Hamas—rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, and forced nudity at multiple sites. Women were raped in front of their children. Some had their breasts sliced off; Hamas terrorists reportedly tossed the severed remains back and forth like grotesque toys. Others were raped and then shot in the vagina.

“They tied my neighbor’s teenage daughter naked to a pole and made her watch as they slaughtered her family.” —October 7 survivor

Men were castrated. Children were forced to witness their parents’ torture and murder.

The parallels are too stark to ignore: entire communities annihilated, women’s bodies weaponized to humiliate nations, and atrocities proudly recorded. The Japanese filmed Nanking. Hamas used GoPros. Both celebrated their crimes, rather than concealing them.

China’s Strategic and Moral Crossroads

Why should the People’s Republic of China—a nation of ancient wisdom and emerging global power—heed Israel’s cries? Because China knows too well the corrosive legacy of victimization and denial.

China’s current alignment—embracing Iran while sidelining Israel—is shortsighted and problematically immoral. Iran funds and arms Hamas, whose barbarity is a stain on the great world religion of Islam. Iran’s proxies—Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria and Yemen—share the same genocidal ideology that engineered October 7.

By contrast, Israel prosecutes perpetrators and cares for survivors. It has transformed grief into resilience and serves as a global leader in documenting wartime sexual violence, notably through the Dinah Project.

China prides itself on “the people’s welfare” as a cornerstone of governance. That welfare must include women, who disproportionately suffer in wartime atrocities. Aligning with Israel over Iran would send a powerful moral message: victims of sexual violence and genocide deserve accountability—not ideological excuses.

Lessons From History, A Path for the Future

In Nanking and Israel, sexual violence was a weapon of genocide, aimed at annihilating identity and pride.

After Nanking, Japan denied or minimized its crimes for decades. Only recently has full acknowledgment begun. Similarly, Hamas denies its rapes, even as video, forensic reports, and survivor testimonies stack into a Mount Everest of evidence.

“Both atrocities were not hidden—they were celebrated.”

China, which has itself wrestled with historical denial—from the Cultural Revolution to WWII—should understand the necessity of truth for healing.

Together, China and Israel could co-sponsor a new international treaty against sexual violence in war. They could lead the United Nations in atrocity prevention, drawing from their hard-earned moral authority and suffering.

A Strategic Pivot With Global Benefits

China’s dependency on Iranian oil may seem pragmatic. But this friendship is a reputational liability. Iran is a state sponsor of terror, allied to Assad’s genocidal Syria, and now a cheerleader for Hamas’s atrocities.

A pivot toward Israel offers China not only moral high ground but tangible benefits: access to Israeli innovations in clean technology, famine relief, counterterrorism, and diplomacy.

A Chinese-Israeli joint memorial, or an annual remembrance for victims of sexual violence in Nanking and October 7, would send an unambiguous message: the sanctity of life and dignity is not Western—it is universal.

China could even leverage its Belt and Road Initiative to create “rapid forensic response units” modeled on Israel’s Dinah Project—helping nations document and prosecute wartime sexual violence. This would position China as a growing leader in global humanitarian norms that specifically retain to outlawing rape as a weapon of war.

The Call of History

China’s leadership now stands at a crossroads: support regimes that perpetrate terror, or pivot toward ethical clarity and partnership with a nation that has turned tragedy into resilience.

“Drop the murderers in Tehran. Condemn the monsters in Gaza. Embrace your Jewish brothers—and especially your Jewish sisters.”

Remember Nanking: a city of blood and shame, and—eventually—reckoning. Remember Israel: a people gazing at the ashes of October 7 and refusing to yield.

It is time for China and Israel, two ancient civilizations, to build bridges—not only of shared sorrow but of shared resolve. To say: never again. Never to rape as terror. Never to genocide. Never to denial.

China: Israel calls you to join the side of survivors, justice, and rebuilding. History awaits your answer.

Drop the murderers in Tehran. Condemn the monsters in Gaza. And embrace your Jewish brothers—and especially your Jewish sisters.

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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the author of “Kosher Hate” and “Judaism for Everyone.” Follow him on Instagram and X @RabbiShmuley.