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DEI, Title VI, Post-Colonialism: How to Fight Back Against Hate on College Campuses
One of the campus buildings at the University of California, Berkeley. Photo: Max Pixel/Creative Commons.
“Jews are the new Nazis,” someone yelled at a student government meeting. A swastika was found on a Jewish student’s dorm room door. A sign in a plaza claimed that Jews are the masterminds behind an international illegal organ trafficking ring. Posters of Jewish events were ripped down and thrown in the garbage.
You might think these events took place recently, but they are actually my recollections from UC Berkeley when I was an undergraduate student from 2009 to 2013.
At the time, I took solace in the belief that UC Berkeley was on the anti-Jewish fringes, relative to other universities around the country. “The rest of America isn’t like this,” I told myself.
But incidents on American campuses since October 7 make it clear that this hatred has spread well beyond places like UC Berkeley. Fortunately, there are several concrete actions leaders can advocate for to combat antisemitism on campus.
First, the Federal government should aggressively investigate exclusionary practices that limit the ability of Jewish students to participate in campus life. These practices have resulted in student government leaders being pushed out of their positions for identifying as Jewish, or Jewish student clubs receiving unequal treatment relative to other groups.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Federal government is already granted authority to investigate these exclusionary practices, and to withhold Federal funds if institutions are found at fault. However, enforcement generally occurs on a case-by-case basis, such as through individual complaints. To tackle the problem quickly and comprehensively, the Federal government should launch a large-scale investigation of several universities who reportedly engage in this exclusionary behavior in place of the current piecemeal approach.
Second, ethnic studies courses should be reworked by school districts, university boards, and state legislatures to teach history, culture, and religion instead of the heavy emphasis on Marxist and Postcolonial ideology.
When I enrolled in Native American Studies at Berkeley, I was excited to learn about the history, culture, and religion of Native American tribes. However, the class itself was mostly dedicated to reading theorists, like Frantz Fanon, who simplifies the world into “colonizer” and “colonized,” while also literally calling for violent revolution against the so-called colonizers.
When conflict between Israel and its neighbors arises, many ethnic studies students see Jews as the white colonizers (even though Jews are not colonizers, and more than 50% of Israeli Jews would be considered BIPOC in America) versus the “colonized” people of color. This stunningly superficial interpretation is then used as rationale to engage in violent actions against Jews.
Going forward, if Post-colonialism and Marxism must be included in courses, these theorists must be balanced with their ideological rivals.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, who advocated for social cohesion, peaceful coexistence, and nonviolent resistance, would be a good start.
Third, state legislatures and/or governing boards that oversee universities should mandate regular performance audits of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) teams on campus.
The rise in DEI presence on campus has coincided with an increase in antisemitism. One analysis found that DEI staffing at the University of Michigan more than quadrupled from about 40 in 2002 to 167 in 2021. At worst, these DEI efforts are contributing to antisemitism. At best, they are ineffective at curbing it.
Here is a video of a former DEI official being told that protecting Jewish students did not fall under her mandate because they were “white oppressors,” and her job was to “de-center whiteness.”
Requiring DEI offices to use data, such as campus climate surveys and discrimination complaint trends, to publicly report on the degree to which DEI efforts are reducing antisemitism — and all forms of bigotry for that matter — will hold DEI officials accountable to the values they profess to uphold.
Fourth, university administrators must better coordinate with local law enforcement partners to ensure the enforcement of laws to protect students from physical harm at protests. While the First Amendment includes the right of free speech and the right to peaceably assemble, some universities forget to prioritize other applicable regulations on gatherings, such as laws against physical harassment and blocking buildings/sidewalk access.
While I was a student at Berkeley, protesters from Students for Justice in Palestine blocked an entrance to campus during a protest. When one student in a wheelchair attempted to pass, protestors began to kick him until he retreated. Police officers observed in the distance and did nothing.
Ignoring illegal actions of some students during protests unnecessarily endangers other students and has the effect of chilling speech among those who are understandably afraid of physical altercation.
In addition to the ideas set forth here, combating antisemitism on campus requires leaders who are willing to first call out the problem. While it can be intimidating to call out evil due to fear of appearing biased or becoming a target of vitriol, it is in times of great turmoil where taking a stand is needed most.
To those leaders reluctant to speak out and act, consider Hillel’s famous question: “If not you, then who? If not now, when?”
Ben Goldblatt is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a government oversight expert.
The post DEI, Title VI, Post-Colonialism: How to Fight Back Against Hate on College Campuses first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’
Raphael Lemkin being interviewed on Feb. 13, 1949. Photo: Screenshot
Pressure is mounting on a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization that has usurped the name of a Jewish lawyer and anti-genocide activist to pursue a campaign of strident anti-Israel activism.
Earlier this month, The Algemeiner exposed the extreme anti-Israel activities of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, reporting that family members of Raphael Lemkin are outraged that the name of Lemkin, who died in 1959, is being used without their permission to groundlessly vilify the world’s lone Jewish state.
Jewish organizations and Israeli government representatives voiced alarm at the situation disclosed in the article. Lemkin was an ardent Zionist who coined the term genocide and spearheaded the effort to win passage of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, while the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, founded in 2021, has repeatedly and — despite all evidence to the contrary — accused Israel of planning and perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
“The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) is desecrating the name of Raphael Lemkin and the word ‘genocide’ by falsely labeling the Gaza war as ‘genocide,’” the Simon Weisenthal Center said in a social media post linking to The Algemeiner story. “Lemkin was a Jewish lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’ and dedicated his life to exposing the horrors of the Holocaust. While the Lemkin Institute is entitled to its political agenda, it has no right to besmirch Lemkin’s legacy.”
An Israeli diplomat, Tammy Rahaminoff-Honig, posted about the article from her official government account: “An important story by @IraStoll in the @Algemeiner reveals infuriating abuse by @LemkinInstitute of Raphael Lemkin’s name and legacy, as well as the terms Holocaust and Genocide, for political bashing of Israel.”
The Azerbaijani Jewish Assembly of America wrote in response to the article, “Finally, @LemkinInstitute has been exposed. It has been a platform for not only antisemitic rhetoric but also blatant Azerbaijanophobia. Backed by funding from the Armenian lobby, it has relentlessly targeted Azerbaijan, promoting the dehumanization of the Azerbaijani people.”
The Lemkin Institute, which didn’t answer The Algemeiner‘s inquiries before the article was published, issued “a note on recent criticism of the Lemkin Institute.”
“We are proud of our record and of our unfailingly frank assessments,” the statement said. “It is almost never popular to call out genocide as it is happening or to point to red flags as the process is getting started.”
In a social media post, Michel Elgort characterized the Lemkin Institute’s note as “a very long, vague, and empty statement that didn’t answer the most basic question that was asked by The Algemeiner: Did you or did you not co-opted the name of Raphael Lemkin to appropriate the good will associated with his name and works, without his family and successors approval?”
The post Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints
It’s been a rocky year for relations between Toronto’s Jewish community and city hall following the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel—which led to an ongoing regional war in the […]
The post Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema attends a press conference following the violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer team, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
JNS.org – In the arsenal of the antisemite, denial is a key weapon. Six million Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust? Didn’t happen. The Soviet Union persecuted its Jewish population in the name of anti-Zionism? Zionist propaganda. Rape and mutilation were rampant during the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? What a smear upon the noble resistance of Hamas. And so on.
No surprise, then, that the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is now publicly regretting her use of the word “pogrom” in her summation of the shocking antisemitic violence unleashed by Arab and Muslim gangs in the Dutch city in the wake of the soccer match between local giants Ajax and visitors Maccabi Tel Aviv two weeks ago.
One day after the violence, Halsema noted that “boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli football fans, it was a hit and run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms.” She could have also mentioned (but didn’t) that the Dutch authorities ignored warnings from Israel that the violence was being stoked in advance in private threads on social-media platforms, resulting in a massive policing failure; that Ajax supporters were not involved in the attacks, undermining claims that what happened was merely another episode in the long history of inter-fan violence at soccer matches; and that the “boys” engaged in the assaults were overwhelmingly youths of Moroccan or other Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds, who gleefully told their victims that their actions were motivated by the desire to “free Palestine.” But at least Halsema grasped the nature of the violence. Or so we thought.
A few days later, she rolled back her initial comments. “I must say that in the following days, I saw how the word ‘pogrom’ became very political and actually became propaganda,” she stated in an interview with Dutch media. “The Israeli government, talking about a Palestinian pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. In The Hague, the word pogrom is mainly used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers, Muslims. I didn’t mean it that way. And I didn’t want it that way.”
On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.”
Halsema’s discomfort does not, of course, mean that what happened in Amsterdam was not a pogrom. Nor does she speak for the entirety of the Dutch political class. Both the center-right VVD Party and the further-right PVV Party, for example, continue to describe the violence as a pogrom and have suggested strong measures for countering further outrages targeting local Jews and visiting Israelis. Both parties have urged a clampdown on mosque funding from countries promoting Islamism, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and have called on the Netherlands to follow Germany’s example in denying or removing citizenship from those convicted of antisemitism.
But the mayor’s 180-degree turn speaks volumes about how the left in Europe enables antisemitism by denying that it is a serious problem. To begin with, there is a refusal to situate each incident in its historical context, which makes it all the easier to portray violent explosions as an anomaly. Listening to Halsema, you would never know that the Amsterdam pogrom was preceded in March by a violent demonstration at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum, where pro-Hamas protestors masked with keffiyehs and brandishing Palestinian flags—this century’s equivalent of a brown shirt and a Nazi armband—lobbed fireworks and eggs in protest at the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. What you will realize, however, is that Halsema is terrified of being labeled “Islamophobic.” That explains her pleas for understanding for a bunch of Moroccan thugs who express contempt not just for Israel but for the country that has provided them a sanctuary with housing, education and many other benefits.
Not only are Jews expected to take all this abuse lying down; they are then told by non-Jewish leftist politicians—often aided by Jewish “anti-Zionist” lackeys—that they have no right to situate the violence directed against them within the continuum of Jewish persecution over the centuries. What happened in Amsterdam, we are badgered into believing, was different because it wasn’t motivated by hatred of Jews but a righteous rejection of Israeli policy.
That’s why the behavior of some of the Maccabi fans is brought into the equation. Video showing fans descending into a subway as they chanted “F**k the Arabs” spread like wildfire on social-media platforms, along with reports that Palestinian flags adorning some private homes had been torn down. I am not going to endorse these actions, even if, as a Jew, I can understand and empathize with the feelings that motivated them, but I also consider them essentially irrelevant to this case. The advance planning of the pogrom, coupled with the wretched record of pro-Hamas demonstrations around the Netherlands in the previous year, proves that the Maccabi fans would have been hounded and attacked even if their behavior had been impeccable. Moreover, legally and morally, violent assaults are in a different league than acts of petty vandalism or the singing of distasteful songs. There can be no comparison, and nor should there be.
What the Amsterdam pogrom underlines is that the extremes of the left and the unreconstructed elements of the nationalist right are now at one in their attitudes towards Jews. On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.” Both terms carry the same meaning, but are expressed in language designed to appeal the prejudices of their respective supporters. For the left, claims of antisemitism are dismissed as expressions of Jews exercising their “privilege,” dishonestly seeking victim status at the same time as the “colonial” state they identify with is persecuting the “indigenous” inhabitants. For the right, claims of antisemitism are a tactic to shield the contention that Jews are superior to everyone else. Translated, both communicate the same message: The violence you experience is violence you bring upon yourselves.
To her eternal shame, Halsema is now trafficking in this noxious idea while presiding over a city in which no Jew can now feel safe, less than a century after their ancestors were rounded up and deported by the German occupiers. She should resign.
The post Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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