Jewish students unimpressed with universities’ response to rising antisemitism

Universities have been at the forefront of the spike in antisemitism in the U.S., with strategies to combat the issue that so far leave much to be desired by Jewish students.

Colleges have had mixed approaches to combatting antisemitism in the wake of last month’s deadly Hamas terror attack on Israel and the subsequent military response, with campuses taking actions ranging from the release of statements to designated police protection in certain cases.

Cornell University made headlines after a student allegedly made threats online to bring a gun to school to “shoot up” a dining hall with kosher options that caters to Jewish students. The person also reportedly said he would slit the throats of Jewish students. 

The university suspended the student and increased police presence in areas Jewish students would frequent, including the dining hall and the Hillel center. 

Jewish organizations also praised universities such as Columbia for suspending the Students for Justice in Palestine group, which has been accused of contributing to the rise in threats with its statements cheering on Hamas.

Antisemitism on college campuses has been the topic of two congressional hearings since the Oct. 7 attack, with administrations under fire for lackluster statements condemning the event or slow responses to antisemitic incidents on campus.

Jewish students do not see subsequent actions as sufficient to protect them. 

Talia Khan, a 25-year-old grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told The Hill she has received poor answers when bringing concerns of antisemitism to her administration. 

“They are fully aware of all of these like situations and they haven’t done anything to make us feel more safe,” said Khan, the president of MIT’s Israel Alliance. “They say that they are ‘working on it,’ that ‘these things take time,’ etc. But when asked, ‘What are you going to do to make us feel safe today? Tomorrow?’ They’re not giving anything back. Just words.”

She said that in one instance, the head of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Sophia Hasenfus, liked a social media post that said, “this is what oppressed fighting the oppressors looks like” on Oct. 7 after the attack. 

Khan also said she had to switch out of one study group to avoid students who were saying Hamas’s attack was justified. 

“You have administrators and people in power making students feel so scared and unsafe on campus, and the MIT administration is fully aware of every single one of these cases,” she said. 

MIT said in a statement it is “always hard to hear from someone who feels unsupported” and that school officials “appreciate that there are a diverse range of sincerely held views and feelings across our student body and wider community.”

A spokesperson pointed to an announcement from MIT President Sally Kornbluth last week on steps the school was going to take to combat antisemitism.

In the video, Kornbluth announced a university commission called “Standing Together Against Hate,” saying that “No one in our community should have to feel afraid to walk on campus wearing a Star of David, or a yarmulke, or a hijab — or any other emblem of their faith.”

Kornbluth said the school has stepped up security and reminded students they are violating campus policies by “disrupting classrooms by chanting slogans of kind.”

The MIT spokesperson said there has been “special outreach” to students and groups “affected by the conflict” and support is available through the Division of Student Life.

“In addition, folks across a host of offices have been actively engaged, including the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, which encompasses MIT Hillel; the campus police, and members of our committed faculty (including those with long-time ties to Israel and the region), among others,” they added.

The Anti-Defamation League reported 312 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. from Oct. 7-23. The same time period in 2022 only saw 64 antisemitic incidents. But even before the Oct. 7 attack, antisemitism was on the rise, with FBI statistics showing related hate crimes up 25 percent between 2021 and 2022.

Across the country, Ephraim Shalunov, a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said he has had “Heil Hitler” yelled at him on campus and “harassment against Jewish students is just completely commonplace” with little assistance coming from the school.

Shalunov said his school became the first public university to pass a condemnation of Hamas through student government, although not without “violent protests” trying to disrupt the proceedings, to which “the administration was extremely slow to respond.”

He said there “was no interest in trying to stop the disruption. And only after people were assaulted were police finally called, despite the fact that they were screaming genocidal chants through megaphones at hundreds of Jewish students in an orderly meeting — that is obviously a violation of numerous campus policies.”

A UC Santa Barbara spokesperson told The Hill, “Our campus has been working to offer support to our students during these challenging times, including a host of services that provide them with academic and personal advising, support for their well-being, and more. We also provide students with tools, including how to report bias incidents and information about campus policy. The University reviews and responds to these incidents as they are reported.”

Shalunov said the university had senior officials attend a vigil held for Israelis after the attack but that there was a “steady degeneration” on campus in the weeks to follow. 

Despite being in “frequent contact” with the vice chancellor for student affairs and the dean of student life, he said, the school has offered him “nothing” in response. 

“Our campus administrators and student affairs professionals care very deeply about our students and have been meeting with individuals and campus organizations and have shared information about available resources in meetings and several campus-wide messages,” the school spokesperson said. “The campus demonstration response team is present at every event to monitor and help address student concerns in real-time and coordinate with our campus safety partners.”

The Department of Education recently launched a civil rights investigation against seven schools amid allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia. The probe includes Columbia, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Lafayette College and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

“We at the Department of Education, like the nation, see the fear students and school communities experience as hate proliferates in schools,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary of civil rights for the department.

Khan said a letter has been sent to her administration titled “Unsafe environment for Jews and Israelis at MIT” that details the instances of antisemitism and how Jewish students have felt unsafe and not supported on campus. 

The letter outlines four steps students want officials to take: banning student groups that incite antisemitism from campus, enforcement of school rules equally for all groups, adopting the definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and educating staff on it and demanding officials publicly declare their goal to combat antisemitism in all forms, including anti-Zionism. 

“Jewish students are facing unprecedented anti-Semitism on campus. We’re no longer talking about words that hurt,” said David Brog, the executive director of Maccabee Task Force, which works to help Jewish and pro-Israel students combat antisemitism. “We’re talking about physical attacks and threats. We’re talking about the celebration of the massacre of Jews in Israel — and all that implies for the safety of Jews on campus. And the response of most universities has been to embrace an appalling double standard.” 

“When it comes to other minorities, they will not tolerate the smallest micro-aggression. But when it comes to Jewish students, they’re suddenly champions of the most violent free speech. These universities need to wake up, grow a backbone and make it clear that they will oppose physical threats and the celebration of violence against Jews to the same extent they would oppose such violence against any other group,” Brog added.