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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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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.