Universities across the country are preparing for “pro-Palestinian” protests as students return to campus. It is, unfortunately, a necessary worry created by these very universities as their liberal leaders turned them into bastions of left-wing activism and ideology.
The protests have already returned to Columbia University, with students blocking paths around campus and chanting their support for a terrorist state (or terrorist “state,” given “Palestine’s” current status). This comes months after protests grew so disruptive that the university moved to virtual classes to protect students. The university tacitly admitted at the time that it was unable to protect Jewish students from the antisemitic mobs gathering at various locations on campus.
The university even admitted as much in a recent report, noting that Columbia professors and “high-level administrators” ignored and downplayed complaints from Jewish students about the antisemitism streaming from these protests. The university was responsible for a “recurring lack of enforcement of existing University rules and policies,” according to the report.
Columbia created this environment, though not just through its apathy about students fomenting hate on campus. The university created a hateful, antisemitic campus culture in the classroom as well, whether that be through official means such as the Center for Palestine Studies or through unofficial means as professors brought their own thoughts into classrooms. The perpetual victim mentality of the Palestinians, which was used to justify their antisemitic hatred and the terrorist activities that began these protests after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, has been a staple on Columbia’s campus.
Let’s compare those activities to some of Columbia’s stated “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” goals and policies. The university’s undergraduate admissions page pledges that “Columbia students come from all parts of the world to form a dynamic community of bright, curious individuals living and learning together in a truly one-of-a-kind city.”
The university’s DEI page boasts that “At Columbia, we strive to foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment in which students, staff, faculty, alumni, and our neighbors all can thrive.”
Nothing quite says an “inclusive environment where everyone can thrive in a community of bright and curious individuals” quite like fostering hatred against out-group “oppressors” and then standing by and watching as students flock to campus to cheer on genocidal Palestinian terrorists. When Columbia Law School decided to host a DEI author who believes Jews exploit white privilege and create tension with black people, it was surely that was meant to “foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment” where Jewish students could thrive, right?
The University of Pennsylvania was another hot spot for antisemitic protests over the summer. The university’s former president, Liz Magill, defended the faculty for holding a Palestine Writes Literary Festival that included antisemites.
“We … fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission,” she argued.
UPenn’s student code of conduct, accessible from its DEI webpage, says students have “the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or status as a disabled or Vietnam Era veteran.”
Students at UPenn also have “responsibilities” in the code of conduct, which include obligations “to respect the health and safety of others. This precludes acts or threats of physical violence against another person” and to “respect the right of fellow students to participate in University organizations and in relationships with other students without fear, threat, or act of hazing.”
But how does that really look at UPenn? For one, Magill’s free speech defenses did not extend to tenured law professor Amy Wax, whose suspension and pay deductions were signed off on by Magill after Wax’s comments on race and IQ, among other things. Nor do those mandates stating students are prohibited from making threats or inducing fear count so long as their targets are Jewish. Magill infamously told Congress that calling for a genocide of Jews does not necessarily violate the university’s code of conduct.”
All of those DEI promises, and warnings about discrimination and threats were fine and dandy when universities were basking in the political warmth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Returning to Columbia as an example, then-President Lee Bollinger announced multiple advisory committees and task forces in solidarity with left-wing students marching in protest of the death of George Floyd, who died at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
When it comes time for Jewish students to express their concerns, the sympathy turns to mockery. Multiple Columbia deans mocked the concerns of Jewish students about their safety on campus, including claiming that Jewish students being worried for their own safety “comes from such a place of privilege.”
That mockery came from deans in charge of “undergraduate student life” or “student and family support,” the very people who you would think would be the first in line to support Jewish students who feel massive antisemitic demonstrations on campus are more of a threat than they are protests.
These universities have centered their focus on DEI and activism but only for certain privileged groups that left-wing activists favor. Jewish students are not included in those protected classes, and so they must tolerate the double standard that comes with the enforcement of these DEI policies. Students at Columbia can openly support terrorism, spout antisemitism, and avoid suspensions for weeks. When those suspensions finally come down, those students know the university will quickly roll over and reinstate them because DEI doesn’t apply when the targets of harassment are Jewish.
That takes us back to Columbia, where protests have resumed as classes have. One graduate student who supposedly represents the protesters in negotiations with the university (according to PBS) promises that the protests won’t just be “protests and encampments” and that “the limit is the sky.”
Which part of that undermines the supposed logic of university DEI regimes more: the fact that a student is promising more than “protests and encampments” knowing the university already rolled over for these protests the first time, or the fact that antisemitic students are “negotiating” their demands with the university, which is legitimizing them by indulging their tantrums over a fabricated “occupation” and made-up “genocide”?
While some universities, such as UPenn and Columbia, have shuffled antisemites and cowards in and out of spots since earlier this year, the reality is that each bureaucratic replacement will only end up upholding the same system. The DEI rot is too thoroughly ingrained in hiring practices and policymaking at universities for a few new faces to change this.
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These universities have spent decades cultivating a politically engaged “progressive” student body and telling those students that their lives can be divided into “oppressed” and “oppressors.”
The antisemitic bigotry on display is the natural result of that reductive worldview. The idea that student activists should be encouraged and celebrated, and the mind-numbing ignorance that results when students don’t bother to learn what it is they are protesting. In short, it is the perfect encapsulation of the modern university experience.