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Rising Antisemitism on Campus Demands a Strong Legal Offense
The surge in anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment in response to Hamas’ October 7 massacre is cause for serious alarm. This is particularly the case on college campuses, where Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students across the nation face incidents of ostracism, harassment, discrimination, threats, and violence in unprecedented numbers.
Of course, antisemitism and its glorification are not new phenomena. In 1939, for example, the freshman class at Princeton University voted Adolf Hitler the “greatest living person.” The following year’s freshman class repeated the vote with the same results, as did students at Georgetown University.
But we have two key advantages over our 1930s and 1940s counterparts. First, we know what happened the last time we hoped and waited for the antisemitic rhetoric at universities to subside. Instead of being eradicated, it merely laid low for a few decades, before exploding beyond any level we’ve previously experienced. It has consequently become our duty to ensure that university administrators are on clear notice about their legal obligation to protect their Jewish and Israeli students from the pervasively hostile environment that such antisemitism has created on many campuses. And if they deliberately ignore our warnings and efforts to assist them in this regard, it is our duty to hold them accountable.
This is where our second advantage comes into play. We now have a powerful legal tool in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). A cornerstone of American anti-discrimination law, Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs receiving Federal financial assistance. Recipients who fail to comply with their responsibilities under Title VI risk the loss of their Federal funding. While there is no confusion that the “national origin” category of Title VI covers Israeli students, the US Department of Education has repeatedly affirmed that its protections also extend to groups based on real or perceived shared ethnicity or ancestry, including Jewish students.
This means that administrators must acknowledge what is, for most Jews, a very real connection between Jewish identity and the Jewish ancestral homeland of Israel, and take concrete steps to ensure that Jewish students are not subjected to a hostile campus climate based on this component of their identity.
In accordance with the lessons of history, the rampant antisemitism threatening to overtake many campuses since October 7 — and our commitment to supporting students in the face of anti-Jewish bias and bigotry — the StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department are heavily focused on ensuring that administrators across the nation are aware of and complying with their legal duties to Jewish and Israeli students. Toward that end, we have identified specific actions they should take to align their institutions with the requirements of Title VI and other civil rights laws. In addition to the low-hanging fruit of even-handedly enforcing existing campus policies (e.g., imposing appropriate sanctions against those who threaten Jews, individually or collectively), such actions include the following:
(1) While students generally have the right to express their views on campus, administrators must prevent academic departments, student government bodies, and registered student groups, from misusing university resources — such as official school social media accounts and access to email listservs — to propagate hatred or incite violence. Such actions run afoul of professional standards, violate university policies, and create a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students.
(2) Universities have the responsibility to ensure that hateful speech does not escalate to harassment, discrimination, or criminal conduct on campus. If and when it does, it is not protected by academic freedom or freedom of speech, and the university administration is obligated to take the necessary steps — including punitive measures — to remedy the harm caused and deter such conduct from recurring.
(3) It should be self-evident that Hamas’ massacre, dismemberment, rape, beheadings, and kidnapping against anyone, let alone children, babies, the disabled, and the elderly, can never be justified. Yet moral clarity on these matters appears to be lacking within higher education institutions. University administrators should set the tone on their universities by using their voices to unequivocally condemn such acts of terror — which in no way undermines their ability to offer legitimate criticism of other conduct.
(4) University administrators must ensure that faculty are unable to misuse their class time (including cancelling classes) for political indoctrination, especially when it may serve to marginalize Jewish students and support or promote terrorism or other forms of violence.
(5) While the right to protest is generally protected under the First Amendment, allowing outside community members who may harbor antisemitic intentions to participate in student protests on university grounds is not always warranted or advisable. Administrators should do everything in their power to limit non-student access to student events, check for valid student identification, and address unlawful behavior — including by having the police make arrests where appropriate — to help protect the safety of all students.
(6) To the extent permissible under applicable law, universities should prohibit the wearing of masks during demonstrations. They should also ensure robust enforcement of laws prohibiting the wearing of a mask to conceal one’s identity during the commission of a crime. These actions can help prevent violence and harassment on campus, and protect all members of the campus community.
Universities today once again find themselves torn between asserting their inclusive values and acting on them. This time, we have the benefit of hindsight and the legal tools to protect students facing mounting antisemitism. It is the obligation of college and university administrators to apply both. And it is our mission — at StandWithUs and across the nation — to ensure that they do.
Carly Gammill is the director of the StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism. StandWithUs is an international nonpartisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.
The post Rising Antisemitism on Campus Demands a Strong Legal Offense first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months
The University of Toronto has received an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on its property. The 98-page decision from Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said that members of the encampment must take down the tents within 24 hours, by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3. Toronto Police will have […]
The post University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The post Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations has opened an investigation into allegations that its special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories accepted an all-expense paid trip to Australia from various pro-Hamas groups.
In November 2023, Francesca Albanese allegedly traversed around the Australian continent on a trip whose high price tag was covered by anti-Israel organizations, according to documentation acquired by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN.
Albanese initially landed in Sydney and subsequently enjoyed flights into Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra, as well as Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand. The glamorous excursion is estimated to have cost a staggering $22,500.
The UN Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) told UN Watch last week that it had alerted the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the allegations of financial impropriety levied at Albanese.
In a letter sent to UN leadership last month, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer outlined evidence based on multiple sources indicating that Hamas-supporting organizations funded Albanese’s trip to Australia, which has been experiencing an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), an organization that lobbies Australian politicians on behalf of the pro-Palestinian cause, claimed on its website that it “sponsored Ms. Albanese’s visit to Australia” to speak at its annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. During the lecture, Albanese thanked AFOPA for “organizing such a busy visit,” in which she met with numerous Australian politicians and foreign ministry officials.
Free Palestine Melbourne (FPM) and Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA) both claimed to have “supported her visit to Victoria, ACT [Australian Capital Territory] and NSW [New South Wales].” Both groups also publicly declare that they participate in explicit lobbying of Australian politicians in an attempt to “change their minds” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While on her visit, Albanese served as a keynote speaker at a PCIA fundraiser. FPM encourages politicians to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage economically and politically as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN) said it was “honored to support” Albanese’s visit. The organization’s president, Nasser Mashni, openly endorses the terrorist group Hamas and has stated that the eradication of Israel is necessary to secure “the liberation of earth.” APAN states that it “facilitated a range of meetings” for Albanese with Australian parliamentarians.
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC) and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) both organized and likely bankrolled Albanese’s trip to New Zealand, according to UN Watch. At the behest of these groups, Albanese helped lobby a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-linked companies.
Albanese outright denied that her trip was funded by Palestinian lobbying organizations, insisting that the UN footed the bill.
“Yet another trail of egregiously false claims agst me,” she tweeted. “My trip to Australia was paid by the UN as part of my mandate’s activities. Continuous defamation agst my mandate may be well remunerated,but won’t work. It just wastes time that should be used to help stop violence in [the Palestinian territories].”
Albanese did not present any documentation confirming that the UN paid for her travel and accommodations. Rather, she pointed at a statement from AFOPA reading, “Ms. Albanese was authorized by the UN to accept AFOPA’s invitation to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The UN funded Ms. Albanese’s travel & accommodation costs. No Palestinian Solidarity group paid for this trip.”
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In April, Albanese issued public support for the pro-Hamas protests and encampments on American university campuses, saying that they gave her “hope.” She has also repeatedly falsely accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and enacting “apartheid” in the West Bank without condemning Hamas’ terrorism against Israelis.
In February, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The UN did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.