Antisemitism on Campuses

I am a 71-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last year. I have heard antisemitic things from time to time throughout my life. I remember as a child being called a “dirty Jew” and my friends and I being called “Christ killers” as we walked to Hebrew school. I recall a college girlfriend’s parents telling her that she should not go out with me because “Jews are different.” I had an incident in a class I was teaching about the ethics of negotiations where a student matter-of-factly said, “The other side will try to Jew you down,” without the slightest sense of how that was a slur.

But none of this prepared me for the last year. I was stunned when students across the country, including mine, immediately celebrated the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. Students for Justice in Palestine called the terror attack a “historic win” for the “Palestinian resistance.” A Columbia professor called the Hamas massacre “awesome” and a “stunning victory.” A Yale professor tweeted, “It’s been such an extraordinary day” while calling Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state.” A Chicago art professor posted a note reading, “Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement. . . . May they all rot in hell.” A UC Davis professor said, “Zionist journalists . . . have houses with addresses, kids in school,” noting “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more” before adding emojis of a knife, an ax, and three drops of blood. There are, sadly, countless other examples.

At Cornell, a student was arrested and prosecuted for making threats against Jewish students. At George Washington University, a sign said, “The Final Solution.” On many campuses, Jewish students were told, “Go back to Poland.” A Columbia student leader proclaimed, “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” A federal judge in Los Angeles found that the pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA blocked Jewish students from having access to parts of the campus. A federal judge in Boston allowed a suit to go forward at Harvard based on allegations that some of the Jewish plaintiffs during the spring of 2024 were prevented from entering a study room by demonstrators, were “surrounded and intimidated” by protesters, avoided clothing that might identify them as Jewish, and ceased attending Jewish-sponsored events on campus.

I experienced this in a very personal way. Since becoming a law school dean in 2008, my wife, Catherine Fisk, and I have invited the first-year students to our home for dinner. We traditionally do this at the beginning of the school year. Because of COVID, we did not do this in 2021, and the graduating students in 2024 asked us to host dinners for them before graduation. We agreed, and three dinners were scheduled on April 9, 10, and 11.

The week before the dinners, the Law Students for Justice in Palestine at Berkeley put an awful poster on social media and on bulletin boards in the law school building. It was a caricature of me holding a bloody knife and fork and with what appeared to be blood around my lips, with the words in large letters: “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.” I never thought I would see such blatant antisemitism, with an image that invokes the horrible antisemitic trope of blood libel and that attacks me for no apparent reason other than I am Jewish. Other reports about antisemitism on campuses, such as one at Stanford, describe how the awful trope of blood libel has resurfaced.

The posters did not complain about anything I said or did. The only request on the posters was that the University of California divest from Israel, a matter for the regents of the University of California, not the law school or even the Berkeley campus.

On April 9, about 60 students came to our home for the dinner. All had registered in advance. All came into our backyard and were seated at tables for dinner. Just as the guests began eating, I was stunned to see the woman who led the Law Students for Justice in Palestine stand up with a microphone that she had brought, go to the top of the steps in the yard, and begin a speech, including about the plight of the Palestinians. My wife and I immediately approached her and asked her to stop and leave. The woman continued. We repeated our request that she leave. When she continued her speech, my wife attempted to take away her microphone. The only physical contact was in reaching for the microphone. Repeatedly, we told her, you are a guest in our home; please stop and leave. The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted.

Some of those with the student took a video. An excerpt of the video went on social media and quickly went viral in a way that I could not have imagined. Soon, newspapers and magazines had stories about it. We received thousands of messages, many very hateful and some threatening. For days, we received death threats. There was an organized email campaign to the regents and campus officials to have us fired. None of this would have happened if I were not Jewish.

In light of all of this, what needs to be done? Campus administrators must condemn antisemitism and treat it the same way as racism or other forms of hatred. To be clear, I—and I hope all of us—mourn the loss of life in Israel and in Gaza. There is surely room in our hearts to feel compassion for all who are in danger and all who have lost loved ones. But it is simply wrong to confuse condemning antisemitism with ignoring the plight of the Palestinians.

But administrators condemning antisemitism is not enough. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act provides that recipients of federal funds cannot discriminate on the basis of race or national origin. It has long been established that this prohibits discrimination against Jews. Harassment or actions that create a hostile environment violate Title VI and must be dealt with by the school where it occurs.

It must be remembered that when students violate the law or campus rules, there is no constitutional protection. Even when it is speech that is safeguarded by the First Amendment, campuses still must act.

In the fall of 2023, Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, said on several occasions that speech protected by the First Amendment can be a basis for finding that there was a hostile environment. This does not mean that a school can or should punish the speech that constitutes harassment if the First Amendment protects it.

For public universities, Title VI does not create an exception to the First Amendment. As the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) fact sheet says: “Nothing in Title VI or regulations implementing it requires or authorizes a school to restrict any rights otherwise protected by the First Amendment. Neither Title VI nor its implementing regulations require schools to enact or enforce codes that punish the exercise of such rights.”

Rather, the duty of the campus is to not be deliberately indifferent when there is speech that constitutes harassment. OCR has offered guidance on what campuses might do to avoid being deemed to be “deliberately indifferent.” Lhamon sent a “Dear Colleague” letter in May 2024 to provide guidance. She wrote:

Schools have a number of tools for responding to a hostile environment—including tools that do not restrict any rights protected by the First Amendment. To meet its obligation, a university can, among other steps, communicate its opposition to stereotypical, derogatory opinions; provide counseling and support for students affected by harassment; or take steps to establish a welcoming and respectful school campus, which could include making clear that the school values, and is determined to fully include in the campus community, students of all races, colors, and national origins.

This guidance from the Department of Education hopefully will make a significant difference in how campuses act when there are antisemitic incidents. The OCR has many open investigations of alleged antisemitic incidents on campuses across the country.

It is long overdue to treat antisemitism the same as racism and other forms of hate. We have spent too much time arguing over the definition of antisemitism, and, at times, this causes us to insufficiently focus on actions that are clearly hostile to Jews that have occurred on many campuses. Antisemitism on campuses is a serious problem, and it must be addressed forcefully and immediately.

Please note: The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates, the Board of Governors, the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice or the Human Rights Editorial Board of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association. They are the views of the individual authors themselves in their personal capacities.