Connect with us

RSS

Defund Universities That Allow, Ignore Antisemitism, US Senator Says

US Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee markup in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, June 11, 2020. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

US Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Tuesday called for defunding colleges and universities that refuse to take significant steps to condemn and combat antisemitism on their campuses.

Blackburn touted the idea in a guest column published in the Knoxville News Sentinel, a local Tennessee newspaper, affirming a position she already took in October by cosponsoring the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act — which was introduced in the US Congress following an explosion of antisemitic incidents on college campuses after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. The bill would rescind federal funding for colleges and universities that fail to take steps to combat antisemitism on their campuses.

“Antisemitism has ticked up 337% since Oct. 7 and Hamas’ massacre of innocent Israelis. Higher education institutions across the United States have erupted with unsettling protests against the Jewish people — leaving many Americans stunned and disturbed,” Blackburn wrote. “These threats of violence and intimidation targeting people of Jewish heritage reject the very principle of religious freedom on which our country was founded and continues to stand.”

The guest column came amid a surge in antisemitism on college campuses across the West. Universities have been hubs of such antisemitism since Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught, with students and faculty both demonizing Israel and rationalizing the Palestinian terror group’s rampage. Incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have also increased. As a result, Jewish students have expressed feeling unsafe and unprotected on campuses. In some cases, Jewish communities on campuses have been forced to endure threats of rape and mass slaughter.

“I firmly believe that not a single dime from American taxpayers should be given to universities that allow, promote, or turn a blind eye to antisemitism on their campuses,” Blackburn wrote.

In her piece, Blackburn cited two former US presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan, whose public statements championed religious freedom as an essential human right, arguing that higher education’s failure to protect Jewish students falls short of the ideals they articulated. Additionally, the senator accused Harvard University president Claudine Gay and former University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill of concealing their indifference to the welfare of Jewish students behind a commitment to free speech, which, she alleged, elite higher education has not upheld in the past.

Magill resigned from her position earlier this month after telling a congressional committee that deciding whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted a violation of the private university’s code of conduct was “context dependent.”

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, elite college faculty who have expressed conservative opinions on racial preferences and other controversial subjects have been subject to investigations, rumor mongering, and even termination. Meanwhile, Columbia University issued no statement nor took any action after professor Joseph Massad said in a column published in Electronic Intifada that Hamas’ invasion on Oct. 7 was “awesome” and that the terrorists who para-glided into a music festival in Israel to rape and murder the young people there were “the air force of the Palestinian resistance.” Neither did the University of California, Berkeley after Gender and Women Studies Department lecturer Brooke Lober falsely claimed during a city council meeting in Oakland, California that Israel fabricated accounts of Hamas’ atrocities and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), not Hamas, murdered Israeli civilians.

Elaborating on her personal opinion on free speech, Blackburn argued that the First Amendment of the US Constitution does not protect “speech that incites violence and genocide is not protected speech.” Such language puts the Republican senator out of step with some right-leaning individuals and organizations, such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has championed the belief that nearly all speech, regardless of its vulgarity or potential to corrupt public debate, is protected by the First Amendment.

“The brutal attack by Hamas has exposed the cesspools that our higher education institutions have become,” Blackburn concluded. “We must demand a change in our higher education system. There must be no quarter for antisemitism on American college campuses or in our K-12 schools. Institutions that do must not receive a single dime from the federal government.”

Congress has taken action since Oct. 7 to address what experts have described as a double standard on antisemitism. Earlier this month, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), announced an investigation into top universities to determine whether they have intentionally ignored and declined to punish antisemitic harassment and discrimination.

According to the antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, public statements issued by colleges already reveal a difference in how they respond to antisemitism versus other forms of racism.

A new study by the group — titled “Selective Sympathy: The Double Standard in Confronting Jewish Student Trauma & Antisemitism” — found that only 4 percent of statements from US colleges and universities on the Oct. 7 onslaught identified Hamas’ attack as antisemitic. Just 2 percent of the statements committed to addressing antisemitism.

Another key finding of the study was that only 14 percent of university statements issued after the Hamas atrocities acknowledged the trauma that the massacre had on Jewish members of the campus community, and just 65 percent condemned the Hamas attack, with many of them also blaming Israel for its policies toward Palestinians.

In contrast, the report found, nearly 100 percent of university statements issued after the killing of George Floyd and during a rise in anti-Asian violence “unequivocally condemned the incidents affecting Blacks and Asians/Asian American” and “acknowledged the emotional trauma suffered by their Black and Asian/Asian American communities following attacks targeting members of those communities.” Meanwhile, 100 percent of statements “named racism and anti-Asian hate as the motivator of their respective incidents,” and more than 90 percent “committed to addressing bigotry directed against Blacks and Asians/Asian Americans.”

AMCHA described the inconsistent responses to discrimination as an “anti-Jewish” double standard. Whether colleges apply it to disciplinary investigations is now up to Congress to decide. In the interim, lawmakers in the body are reviewing the Stop Antisemitism in College Campuses Act. It has been referred to committees in both the House and Senate.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Defund Universities That Allow, Ignore Antisemitism, US Senator Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News