Antisemitism on campus up by 70% - AMCHA Initiative report
The number of suggestions to exclude Jewish and pro-Israel students from various aspects of campus life more than doubled.
By RACHEL WOLFWilliams College, Massachusetts(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit that reportedly monitors more than 400 US colleges for antisemitic activity, said that anti-Israel related antisemitism spiked 70%."On U.S. campuses across the country, harassment motivated by classical antisemitism actually decreased and significantly so. At the same time, however, the number of Israel-related acts of harassment increased significantly,” wrote the researchers.The report went on to claim that academic BDS is on the rise. This is the boycott of anything that "normalized" Israel and anyone associated with Israel.“Academic BDS is more dangerous than people realize,” stated Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA’s director and one of the lead researchers. “Not only does implementation curtail students’ educational rights and opportunities, its promotion on campus, particularly by faculty who give it academic legitimacy, is inciting an alarming increase in harassment against Israel’s presumed supporters, first and foremost Jewish students.Administrators must take the necessary steps now to stop these unacceptable acts of intolerance.”However, the boycotts didn't end with Israel. The number of suggestions to exclude Jewish and pro-Israel students from various aspects of campus life more than doubled.Jewish and pro-Israel students were accused of supporting racism, genocide and "other evils" at more than twice the rate of last year. Incidences of comparing Jewish and pro-Israel students to white supremacists increased by 147%.These incidents were not only student-launched and, according to the report, there was a "dramatic increase" in faculty-initiated occurrences.Based on these findings, those who wrote the report made three specific recommendation to university administrators.The first recommendation was to "establish uniform standards of behavior for all students." The report urged administrators to address Israel-related antisemitism, saying "harassment is harassment." The report acknowledged that anti-Zionist speech was covered under the First Amendment, but that the "behavior such rhetoric incites" needed to be addressed.The next recommendation was to "guarantee no harm" by affirming that the administration would not allow academic BDS to "harm students."
Finally, the report recommended that administrators must make it clear to faculty that politics must never come before "the educational welfare of their students."
