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What the Brandeis Study Gets Shockingly Wrong About Antisemitism on Campus
Brandeis University. Photo: Wiki Commons.
American higher education prides itself on truth-telling. Yet when the subject is antisemitism, the academy often resorts to denial and minimization.
A recent Brandeis University study is a striking case in point. Its authors, Dr. Graham Wright and Prof. Leonard Saxe of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, claim that only three percent of non-Jewish faculty are hostile toward Israel.
In a recent Inside Higher Ed editorial, the authors argue that most professors are in fact allies, not adversaries, in the fight against antisemitism.
This narrative is reassuring — but dangerously misleading. It rests on a narrow definition of “hostility” that excludes far more pervasive expressions of animus.
Wright and Saxe classified as hostile only those faculty who denied Israel’s right to exist and refused to collaborate with colleagues who affirmed it. By that measure, just three percent of professors qualified. Yet their own data tell a different story: a majority — 54 percent — agreed that Israel is an apartheid state; 8 percent said they would not collaborate with a colleague who supports Israel’s existence; and 7 percent denied Israel’s right to exist outright.
Calling Israel an apartheid state — when it manifestly is not — is an act of hostility, one that delegitimizes the Jewish State and stigmatizes its supporters. By any reasonable standard, then, hostility among non-Jewish faculty is not marginal but widespread.
Jewish students’ experiences reinforce this reality about faculty.
Wright and Saxe’s own earlier 2023 report, In the Shadow of War: Hotspots of Antisemitism on US College Campuses, found that at some of the most hostile schools since October 7, 2023, “about 80 percent of Jewish students reported encountering hostility toward Israel from other students ‘sometimes’ or ‘often,’” and 30 percent reported hostility directly from faculty.
Is it remotely plausible that only three percent of faculty are hostile when nearly one in three Jewish students perceive faculty hostility firsthand?
The authors’ subsequent 2024 report, Antisemitism on Campus: Understanding Hostility to Jews and Israel, reached similar conclusions: a majority of Jewish students (60 percent) reported a hostile environment toward Jews on their campus, and 82 percent reported hostility toward Israel.
Non-Jewish students largely agreed: 56 percent said there was a hostile climate toward Israel on their campus. And in February 2025, the American Jewish Committee reported that nearly one-third of Jewish college students believe faculty themselves have promoted antisemitism or hostile learning environments, which matches the 2023 numbers on faculty. These findings make clear that many faculty are part of the problem, not simply neutral bystanders.
Campus incidents drive the point home. At NYU in April 2024, professors formed a human barricade to shield a pro-Hamas encampment from police. At Columbia, professors rallied in defense of encampments accused of harassing Jewish students. At Barnard, a professor proudly supported students in a building takeover and berated a student who challenged her extreme anti-Israel views.
At Sarah Lawrence, where I teach, many faculty openly embrace anti-Zionist narratives, justify calls for violence, and encourage disruptive tactics such as building takeovers. The president of the American Association of University Professors has even endorsed militant “direct action,” betraying its founding mission of protecting academic freedom in favor of raw activism. This posture lends legitimacy to those who would turn campuses into platforms for radical politics and intimidation.
These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a broader pattern of faculty normalizing antisemitic rhetoric, excusing intimidation, and modeling for students that radical activism trumps pluralism. If only a handful — say three percent — of professors were hostile, then the rest would be allies. Yet where are the teach-ins against antisemitism? The op-eds condemning dehumanizing chants? The marches for pluralism led by senior professors with tenure? They scarcely exist, and certainly not in meaningful numbers.
Instead, we see that Jewish and Zionist faculty very publicly retreat in frustration or fear. Many resign or fall silent rather than rally colleagues. Outside groups such as the Academic Engagement Network have tried to fill the void, but on campus, the absence of strong faculty support for beleaguered students is glaring. That silence sustains an anti-Israel culture that cannot credibly be blamed on only three percent of professors.
The Brandeis study also overlooks a structural reality: much of the actual teaching of undergraduates is done not by tenured or tenure-track professors, but by adjuncts, lecturers, and contingent instructors. These are the faculty who most directly shape classroom climate, yet they were excluded from the survey. By extrapolating from a narrower, more insulated slice of faculty, the study presents a portrait of classrooms that is rosier than the reality Jewish students encounter.
The consequences of the study’s myths are profound. Administrators cite it to downplay problems. Policymakers invoke it to avoid reform. Faculty hide behind it to excuse their inaction. The result is a campus environment where hostility toward Israel and its supporters festers unchecked, while institutions point to “data” purporting to show that almost all faculty are allies.
Wright and Saxe close their piece by warning that while the actions of a few faculty can shape the climate of an entire campus, punishing faculty as a whole is unwise. They add that changes are needed, but can only succeed if faculty are part of the process. On that last point, they are right: faculty must be part of any solution. Universities cannot be reformed over the heads of the people who teach and mentor students every day.
But solutions cannot rest on misinterpretation. The Brandeis study’s own data reveal serious problems, yet its framing implies that faculty hostility is statistically marginal. That misleading conclusion obscures the lived reality of Jewish students — and the actual reality on campus.
As I have argued in AEIdeas, faculty bear a responsibility not only to avoid hostility, but to actively sustain pluralism and resist intimidation. When professors retreat into silence, they create a vacuum that the most radical voices inevitably fill. Recognizing that reality is essential if faculty are to become part of the solution rather than bystanders to the problem.
Until faculty themselves prove otherwise, the evidence is clear: too many are not allies of Israel or of Jewish students, but part of the problem itself.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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US-France Tensions Rise Over Antisemitism as New Data Shows Sharp Increase in French Attacks
US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron react on the day of a press conference, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
As Washington presses Paris over its handling of antisemitism, new data shows anti-Jewish hate crimes in France remain far above pre–Oct. 7, 2023, levels nearly two years after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
On Monday, the French Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Charles Kushner after he accused Paris of failing to act decisively against rising antisemitism targeting France’s Jewish community.
In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, Kushner voiced his “deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France” and criticized the French government for its “lack of sufficient action” to confront it.
However, French authorities rejected such claims as “unacceptable” and warned that Kushner’s letter violated international law.
“The rise in antisemitic acts in France since Oct. 7, 2023, is a reality that we deplore and to which the French authorities are responding with total commitment, as these acts are completely unacceptable,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Aurore Bergé, France’s minister for combating discrimination, stood by the government’s efforts to protect its citizens, saying its fight against antisemitism is “unequivocal.”
“This matter is far too serious. In my view, it is too important to be handled through the courts in a diplomatic context,” she said in an interview with Europe 1-CNews.
France’s Jewish community has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
This latest diplomatic row comes as new figures from the French Interior Ministry show 646 antisemitic incidents were recorded from January to June this year — a drop from the previous year’s first-half record high but a 112.5 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023, when 304 incidents were reported.
The wave of anti-Jewish hatred has continued unabated.
Earlier this month, for example, an olive tree planted in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man who was tortured to death in 2006, was vandalized and cut down in one of the latest antisemitic acts to spark outrage within the local Jewish community.
“In France, we are no longer safe, neither alive nor dead,” Halimi’s sister, Anne-Laure Abitbol, told RTL on Monday, adding that public denunciations are no longer enough and urging concrete action.
“I feel less safe in France,” she said. “By recognizing a Palestinian state, Macron is encouraging antisemitism and failing to take action against antisemitic attacks in the country.”
Last month, Macron announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Israeli officials have criticized the move, which was followed by several other Western countries, calling it a “reward for terrorism.”
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Israel Files Complaint After British Wheelchair Basketball Players Snub Israeli Opponents During ‘Hatikvah’
Members of Great Britain’s wheelchair basketball team, right, turning their backs as Israel’s national anthem plays at a game on Aug. 16 at the Wheelchair Basketball Nations Cup in Cologne, Germany. Photo: Screenshot
Israel’s Paralympic Committee filed a formal complaint with the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation after players of the British national team turned their backs when Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” played at a game earlier this month, Israel’s Channel 13 reported.
The incident took place on Aug. 16 at the start of a game held as part of the Wheelchair Basketball Nations Cup in Cologne, Germany. Israel claimed the move violates rules that ban political protests at sports competitions and said athletes who exhibit the same behavior should face sanctions. Moshe Matalon, chairman of the Israel Paralympic Committee, condemned the”shameful” behavior in an interview with Chanel 13 while members of the Israeli team called the behavior “embarrassing.”
Israeli wheelchair basketball player Ilay Yarhi described their actions as “an attack on our dignity as players” in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. He added that the Israeli team “felt like they were bringing unrelated issues onto the court and humiliating us.”
Yarhi told the Post that after the incident, some of the Israeli players approached their opponents and asked why they turned their backs when “Hatikvah” played the start of the game.
“A few of them answered that it was a protest and a way of supporting world peace, that they were not in favor of war,” Yarhi recalled. “Some wanted to come and talk and apologize, but we didn’t agree to that, because if you don’t respect us, you don’t deserve any respect in return.”
A spokesperson for British Wheelchair Basketball told The Telegraph: “British Wheelchair Basketball is aware of the incident during the Israeli national anthem at the Nations Cup. We are continuing discussions internally after conversations with ParalympicsGB, IWBF, and the Israeli Paralympic Committee.”
Britain ultimately won the game against Israel 74-64. The two teams are likely to face each other again at the IWBF European Championships in October in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Irish Eurovision Singer Bambie Thug Boycotts Own Song Until Israel Kicked Out of Song Contest
Bambie Thug performing “Red Rum” at the Lowlands Festival while her dancers hold up two flags, including a Palestinian flag, as an audience member waves a massive Palestinian flag. Photo: Screenshot
Irish singer Bambie Thug is boycotting the song they used to compete in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest until Israel is kicked out of the international competition, the musician announced during a recent performance.
The non-binary singer-songwriter, whose real name is Bambie Ray Robinson, represented Ireland in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Doomsday Blue.” During a performance at the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands earlier this month, the artist told the audience they will not perform the Eurovision entry as long as Israel continues to compete in the international song contest.
“I know that some of you guys know me from that competition. The Eurovision. And I know some of you might want to have heard ‘Doomsday Blue,’” Bambie Thug said on stage. “But, because of the state of the world and because of the state of that competition, I don’t play that anymore. I’m boycotting that song, just like that competition.”
“If one day they get their acts together and kick Israel out of that f–king competition, then I’ll sing it again. But till then,” the artist added, before showing the audience the middle finger. The singer then performed their latest song “Red Rum,” describing it on stage as a “protest song.” Bambie Thug further said that “Red Rum” is “also a song to say more Blacks, more dogs, more Irish, more Palestinians, more Ukrainians, more Iranians, more Sudanese, more Congolese … and more solidarity and more humanity.”
At the conclusion of the song, two dancers on stage held up flags toward the audience, including a Palestinian flag, while standing behind Bambie Thug. The musician then led the audience in chanting “Free, free Palestine.” Footage from the concert also showed an audience member waving a massive Palestinian flag during the performance. Bambie Thug additionally had behind the stage a screen that displayed their stage name in red, white, and green – the colors of the Palestinian flag.
The Lowlands Festival took place Aug. 15-17.
In “Red Rum,” Bambie Thug sings: “Pride is a protest/Rise of the oppressed/Pick a side are you peaceful or possessed … Doom scroll on your screens/While they load the guns/Casualties casually adding up in sum … Missile strikes/Colonial types/Zombies on a mission with a bark and a bite.”
In Malmö, Sweden, during the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, Bambie Thug was ordered by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the competition, to remove pro-Palestinian messaging that was written on the artist’s body as part of their costume for the performance. Bambie Thug had written in the early medieval Irish alphabet Ogham the words “Ceasefire” and “Free Palestine” on their face and legs but was told the remove the words before stepping on stage.