Antisemitism and Free Speech on Campus

Alyssa Lukpat and Nicholas Hatcher
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: A new round of pro-Palestinian demonstrations swept the University of California, Los Angeles, where 25 protesters were arrested after setting up an encampment, the latest outburst of campus tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.

The UCLA Police Department said about 100 people put up tents and barriers Monday afternoon and moved the encampment twice after being ordered to disperse. The protesters made enough noise to disrupt students taking final exams nearby, police said. The people in the demonstration were affiliated with a student group on campus, according to the police department.

Terry Chea and Olga R. Rodriguez
Associated Press

Excerpt: Police arrested 13 people at Stanford University after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the school president and provost’s offices early Wednesday, causing what officials described as “extensive” vandalism inside and outside the building.

Stanford students who participated in Wednesday’s protest would be immediately suspended, and any seniors would not be allowed to graduate, university President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez said in a joint statement.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Last month something happened that has little, if any, public precedent: A university fired a faculty member almost immediately not for out-of-classroom speech but for an optional course assignment. DePaul University dismissed adjunct Anne d’Aquino midway through her first quarter teaching Health 194: Human Pathogens and Defense.

DePaul spokespeople said students and others had expressed concern about the assignment and an accompanying email from d’Aquino that focused on Palestine and included the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.” The assignment asked students to, among other things, explain “the impact of genocide/ethnic cleansing on the health/biology of the people it impacts.”

Adam Kredo
Free Beacon

Excerpt: Harvard University failed to implement a sweeping set of recommendations from its in-house Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) and turned a blind eye to numerous instances of campus harassment even after they were raised with the school's leadership, according to a congressional report.

Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: The Harvard Corporation rejected an effort by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to confer degrees on 13 seniors facing disciplinary charges for participating in the pro-Palestine encampment, an unprecedented veto that opens a new front in the internal battles that have convulsed Harvard for the past year.

The Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, deliberated late into the night on Tuesday as it stared down an impossible decision: render Harvard College’s disciplinary processes toothless by approving the FAS-amended list or undercut the authority of the University’s largest faculty by declining to uphold their amendment.

Zach Kessel
National Review

Excerpt: Harvard University leaders failed to implement an action plan from the school’s own task force aimed at combatting antisemitism on campus, according to a new report by a House education committee whose chairwoman said the task force was apparently “all for show.”