Strong majorities of American college students would not resort to the actions pro-Hamas activists perpetrated last academic year to protest Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, according to a new survey conducted by North Dakota State University’s Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth.

The responses — amassed for the annually conducted American College Student Freedom, Progress, and Flourishing Survey — showed that most students reject their classmates’ flagrant rule breaking and extreme tactics, which have in many instances included assaulting and harassing Jews on campus. The findings also revealed how today’s college students feel about free speech in the classroom, capitalism, artificial intelligence, and the future of the world.

According to the survey, 59 percent of 2,159 respondents, drawn from 466 colleges and universities across the US, said students do not have a right to occupy administrative buildings, while 80 percent disagreed that it is appropriate to “shout down” speakers whose opinions about Israel’s war with Hamas are contrary to theirs. Meanwhile, 73 percent said they would not disrupt classes to protest, and only 13 percent have even participated in campus demonstrations related to the Middle Eastern conflict.

However, the results showed varying opinions according to political ideology. For example, it found that “liberal/leaning” students are more likely to approve of shouting down speakers, disrupting classes, and preventing people they dislike from entering a venue in which they are scheduled to speak. More liberal students also reported participating in campus protests — 18 percent — while just eight percent of conservative students did.

Ideological differences emerged as well when students were asked “which side is right in the Israel-Hamas war?” According to the survey, 63 percent of liberals and 61 percent of conservatives said neither is “right,” but liberal students were four times as likely as conservatives to say that Hamas was in the right. A higher percentage of conservatives favored Israel. Sex divided opinion too, with women being slightly more likely to approve of Hamas.

The report also found that 72 percent of students who favor Hamas claim the right to occupy administrative buildings for the purpose of staging “die-ins.” They are, however, divided on the right to disrupt class — 49 percent said there isn’t one. Other questions revealed that most students do not view either capitalism or socialism favorably. About one-third worry that the advent of artificial intelligence will cause widespread unemployment.

Pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, which caused an unprecedented crisis in academia last year, have fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students, causing them to feel distracted and unsafe, according to a Hillel International survey published in May.

An astounding 61 percent of Jewish students reported that “antisemitic, threatening, or derogatory language” toward Jewish people was uttered during demonstrations at their schools this past academic semester, while 58 percent said that “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” made them feel “less safe.” Others reported being unable to focus or sleep well.

The survey — conducted by Benenson Strategy Group on behalf of Hillel International, and to which 310 Jewish college students responded — found that 40 percent have resorted to concealing their Jewish identity to avoid discrimination. An overwhelming majority, 72 percent, said college administrators should clear encampments from school property and implement measures to prevent the disruption of commencement ceremonies.

“Jewish students, and all students, deserve to pursue their education and celebrate their graduations free from disruption, antisemitism, and hate,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said in announcing the results. “Our findings demonstrate that a majority of Jewish students surveyed have experienced bias and discrimination in their classroom and academic experiences based on faculty and staff abusing their authority in support of the rule-breaking and unlawful anti-Israel encampments and protests.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Most US College Students Reject Disrupting Campus to Protest Israel, Survey Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The University of Michigan (UM) and The New School in New York City have restored funding to student clubs, following a spending freeze enacted by anti-Zionist factions who seized control of their student governments and vowed to cripple school operations until their demands for a boycott of Israel are met.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, a slew of anti-Zionist candidates at UM secured their election to Central Student Government (CSG) last semester by running as the Shut It Down (SID) party, whose platform promised to sever the university’s ties, both financial and academic, to Israel, according to The Detroit News. Since assuming power, its members have shredded the budget for the summer term approved by the previous administration and vowed to block funding for student clubs during the upcoming fall semester.

Anti-Zionists holding office in The New School’s University Student Senate made similar moves, voting to “halt all external funding until the IC votes in favor of divestment.” The move jeopardized the plans of over 150 registered student clubs.

Both schools have effectively vetoed the decisions and taken charge of financial appropriations, temporarily stripping the student governments of the power of the purse.

“The University of Michigan will make funding available to registered student organizations who apply for funding for the fall semester,” Colleen Mastony, University of Michigan assistant vice president of public affairs, told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “UM’s vice president for student life and dean of students notified the Central Student Government on August 19 of the decision to immediately institute a temporary funding process. This step was taken at the request of senior leaders within the CSG assembly, after the CSG president in June vetoed a budget resolution that had been passed unanimously by the assembly. The veto impacted the summer budget only. University funding will remain in place until a budget is passed.”

On Monday, The New School announced that it was taking a similar measure.

“To ensure continued access and support for all students on campus, we will temporarily transfer the responsibility of managing this university fee to the Division of Student Success,” a letter to the campus community signed by three high-level officials said. “This decision was made with careful consideration …While we respect any student or student organizations that choose to stand in solidarity with the Student Senate’s decision, it is essential for the university to be able to distribute these resources to our students so that we may enhance campus life and the student experience.”

Anti-Zionist activists on college campuses are already testing university administrations, pushing the boundaries of their conduct and daring a response.

On Monday, anti-Zionists at Cornell University vandalized an administrative building, a provocation which marked an early test of the resolve of its interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, who announced new policies on “institutional neutrality,” discipline, and encampments around the time of incident.

According to the Cornell Daily Sun, the anti-Zionist agitators graffitied “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on Day Hall. They also shattered the glazing of its front doors.

“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the students told the Cornell Daily Sun, which agreed to conceal their identities. “With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine.”

Kotlikoff’s administration, which said it is “appalled” by the crime, has pledged to hold the culprits responsible.

Earlier this month, two US congressional committees asked 10 of America’s most prestigious universities to disclose their plans for preventing the kind of incident that just occurred at Cornell. Coming amid a congressional investigation of how elite colleges responded to an explosion of antisemitism on college campuses after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the inquiry demanded an accounting of any new policies that schools such as Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley have enacted to preclude the possibility that students will, as they did last academic year across the country, illegally occupy or destroy school property and flout rules which proscribe hate speech and racial abuse.

“Last year, many colleges and universities appeared caught off-guard by the protests, disruptions, threats, and encampments that flooded campus, often to the detriment of Jewish students,” Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), as well as House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), wrote to the schools in a letter. “While that is no excuse for the failures we saw last year, colleges and universities are now acutely aware of the consequences across their campuses that stem from insufficient leadership. Refusals to impose basic discipline, hold bad actors accountable, and restore order on campus in the face of disruptions, violence, and hate will make life worse for all students, including Jewish students.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Universities Distribute Student Club Funds Frozen by Anti-Zionist Led Student Governments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The author of a book on Jewish American identity enjoyed a sellout crowd at a rescheduled event after the original discussion was canceled over the presence of a Zionist panelist. 

Joshua Leifer, author of Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, spoke alongside Rabbi Andy Bachman at the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn on Monday. The original discussion, which was scheduled at Powerhouse Books in Brooklyn last Tuesday, was canceled at the last minute by an employee who did not want the bookstore to platform a “Zionist” rabbi. 

During Monday’s discussion, Leifer lambasted the store’s decision as both “wrong and antisemitic” as well as “the dumbest strategic thing you can do.”

The bookstore’s owner, Daniel Power, later clarified in an interview that Powerhouse Books does not maintain an official ban on Zionist authors and that the employee acted on her own. He revealed that the employee responsible for canceling the event quit on her own accord before he could fire her. 

The bookstore issued an apology soon after the incident, writing, “litmus tests as a precondition for participation in public life are wrong. Rejections of dialogue, debate, and nuance are wrong.”

Despite the inconvenience, the backlash over the viral incident seems to have benefited Leifer. Roughly 300 people attended the rescheduled discussion, as opposed to the estimated two dozen that showed up for the original event. Leifer’s book currently holds the number one spot in the “History of Judaism” section on Amazon.

“In large part, this sanctuary is filled because of what happened,” Bachman stated at the event. 

Leifer, a political progressive and writer, has issued blistering criticisms of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. He has called for a change in the “status quo” of Israeli policy and has encouraged the American Jewish community to reexamine its relationship with Israel. 

In an essay published in The Atlantic, Leifer reflected on the bookstore’s decision to snub Bachman for being a Zionist, saying that it “exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face.”

“We are caught between parts of an activist left demanding that we disavow our communities, even our families, as an entrance ticket, and a mainstream Jewish institutional world that has long marginalized critics of Israeli policy. Indeed, Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver,” Leifer wrote.

“My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder,” Leifer added. Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction.” 

The post Author Whose Talk Was Canceled Over ‘Zionist’ Panelist Sees Sales Surge, Packed Crowds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.