Meanwhile the Department of Education has threatened about 60 other universities with similar funding cuts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, apparently for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia. The federal government later arrested a second person linked to the protests and revoked the student visa of another Columbia student. There is no question that campus protests at Columbia and other universities have included serious antisemitic incidents. I’ve spoken with students and faculty members at Columbia — my alma mater — and elsewhere who have been harassed for wearing kippot or other visible Jewish symbols, who have encountered swastikas or graffiti reading “Death to Zionists” and “Death to Jews,” and who have been pushed out of clubs and campus spaces for their refusal to disavow any connection to Israel. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the primary organization behind the protests, has openly celebrated violence against Israeli Jewish civilians and distributed material glorifying Hamas. I have also spoken with students who took part in campus encampments, including Jewish students, who joined out of a sincere desire to end the war in Gaza. Columbia, like any university, should both allow for free speech on campus, including antiwar protests, and resolutely address episodes that cross the line into antisemitism according to its own codes of conduct and disciplinary policies — just as it should take action in cases of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, or other bias. It’s reasonable for Jewish students, faculty, and staff to demand that school administrations do more to ensure their safety on campus. But when the federal government withholds funds primarily intended for scientific research and tries to expel campus protesters without due process, the true aim is to force universities to accommodate whatever the government wants. If this administration can get away with enforcing demands on universities under the guise of fighting antisemitism, it can subsequently use that same power against universities over any issue — such as teaching the history of racism in America, allowing transgender students to live in dorms that match their identities, or offering reproductive health care in affiliated hospitals. If the government can deport or strip visas from students and faculty without due process (a Brown University medical school professor was deported despite a court order), then universities will lose their ability to conduct open inquiry and education, not to mention their ability to attract talented students, scholars, and doctors from around the world. Public universities will be even more vulnerable than private schools. It’s no surprise that Trump, an aspiring autocrat, would set his sights on universities. As strongholds of critical inquiry and free speech, universities play a crucial role in maintaining democracy. In Hungary, Prime Minister Orbán’s government forced Central European University to move most of its activity abroad , banned gender and women’s studies departments in the country, and placed all universities under control of a governmental body. In Turkey, President Tayyip Erdoğan granted himself the power to install university rectors and fired thousands of academics. Jewish communities understand well the value of democracy and the dangers of restrictions on speech. It is America’s liberal democracy, including First Amendment protections, that have allowed Jews to flourish in the United States. At the same time, efforts to limit speech in the United States have often had a disproportionate impact on the Jewish community. These have included the 1919 and 1920 Palmer raids , which targeted Italian and Jewish immigrants for deportation; the Espionage Act of 1917, which threatened the survival of the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper because of its opposition to the US entry into World War I; and the Red Scare of the 1950s, which drew on the myth of “ Judeo-Bolshevism ” in viewing Jews as a communist threat. Trump is now using the Jewish community as a wedge to dilute free speech protections, control university curricula, and override immigration law. For some in the Jewish community, the short-term gains of shutting down anti-Israel protests may seem like a worthy tradeoff. But in the long term, the weakening of democracy will make Jews and others less safe. Once a government establishes the power to shut down discourse, it tends to use it to silence any critics or opponents. If Trump were actually interested in protecting Jewish students, he would not be slashing the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights , whose staff investigate bias complaints on campus. Nor would he appoint Cabinet members and staff who openly espouse antisemitic and other bigoted beliefs or pardon Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists who were members of antisemitic militia groups. Rather than protecting Jews, the Trump administration is fanning the flames of antisemitism by attempting to pit Jewish communities against others. Historically, antisemitism has thrived by making Jews into scapegoats in moments of political, cultural, or economic instability — conditions that this administration’s policies threaten to produce. Anyone committed to stopping the alarming growth of antisemitism must recognize the Trump administration’s attempts to use the Jewish community’s legitimate concerns as a pretext for undermining democracy, and must reject attempts to drive a wedge between Jews and other Americans. The most important way to protect democracy, as well as the Jewish community, is to work together to ensure a strong democracy for all.
CONTINUE READING
