Antisemitism and Free Speech on Campus

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: I think there’s little doubt that the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests will once again roil colleges campuses this coming academic year.  As protestors vow that they’ll continue their activities, legal or not, and as Israel continues to root Hamas out of Gaza, I fully expect more trouble come this fall.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Roughly two dozen pro-Palestinian protesters, many wearing masks and keffiyehs, blocked access to a convocation ceremony at Pomona College Tuesday, The Claremont Courier reported. The local news outlet said that protesters refused to comply with requests from campus safety officers who asked them to move, remove their masks and show their student identification. The group Pomona Divest From Apartheid took credit for the protest.

“WE SHUT DOWN CONVOCATION,” the group posted on Instagram Tuesday.

Eugene Volokh
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason

Excerpt: Loggins sued Stanford for race and religious discrimination and related claims, on the theory that "Stanford would not have investigated his class sessions, suspended him, publicly announced its investigation and his suspension, or refused to extend his contract '[b]ut for the fact that [Dr. Loggins] [is] black, Muslim and spoke out against Israeli policies that violated the Geneva Convention[.]'" But the court concluded that Loggins hadn't alleged sufficient evidence that Stanford's treatment was motivated by his race or religion.

Alyssa Lukpat
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: A federal judge ruled the University of California, Los Angeles, must ensure equal access to campus for Jewish students after some alleged in a lawsuit they were blocked by protesters at this spring’s pro-Palestinian encampments.

Alyssa Lukpat
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: A federal judge ruled the University of California, Los Angeles, must ensure equal access to campus for Jewish students after some alleged in a lawsuit they were blocked by protesters at this spring’s pro-Palestinian encampments.

Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman
The Hill

Excerpt: Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has spawned hundreds of campus protests and a series of widely publicized incidents that left many Jewish students feeling unsafe. These include an online threat to assault Jewish students at Cornell University; a Jewish counter-protester whose nose was broken while he was trying to stop the burning of an Israeli flag at Tulane; pro-Palestinian students pounding on the doors of Cooper Union library with Jewish students inside; the violent occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University; and statements by student organizations at Harvard and faculty members at Yale, Columbia and Cornell appearing to justify Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

How accurate are claims that campus antisemitism is pervasive? The reality is more complicated than critics admit, and the result is often a mismatch between problems that actually exist and the responses that are emerging.