Jewish donors have long been among the most generous benefactors of American higher education. There are few major American college campuses on which there are no buildings, academic chairs, scholarships, or programs bearing Jewish names.
And yet, for years those very same campuses have been viewed by many in the Jewish community as centers of anti-Israel and – at times – antisemitic activity, raising safety concerns for Jewish students.
Stories abound of professors and teaching assistants who bully, intimidate, or mock their Jewish students; of curricula and reading lists containing skewed and twisted information about Israel; of faculty bodies and student governments passing resolutions in support of efforts to boycott the Jewish state; of anti-Israel groups, speakers, and events receiving university funds; and of antisemitic vandalism targeting Hillel Jewish student centers and dormitories with large Jewish populations.
The reality in which a Jewish donor may give heavily to an institution in which his or her grandchild might feel uncomfortable due to his or her Jewish identity or connection to Israel is one that has vexed many in the Jewish community for years.
Now, it appears, the tide may finally be turning.
Last week, the leaders of the Wexner Foundation – founded by billionaire Leslie Wexner and his wife, Abigail – announced that they would be severing longstanding ties with Harvard University and its Kennedy School of Government due to what they called “the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists last Saturday [October 7].”
The announcement came after several dozen student groups at Harvard signed on to a statement blaming Israel for the current violence, which university administrators refused to condemn.
“That should not have been hard,” the Wexner leaders wrote. “In the absence of this clear moral stand, we have determined that the Harvard Kennedy School and The Wexner Foundation are no longer compatible partners. Our core values and those of Harvard no longer align.”
Since then, a growing list of donors to Harvard and other universities have announced that they are stopping their financial support to the institutions and withdrawing from their boards due to administrators’ failure to forcefully condemn the Hamas massacre, reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense, and protect Jewish students.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., who is not Jewish, announced that his foundation would cease giving to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, due what he called its “silence” following the Hamas pogrom.
“To the outsider, it appears that Penn has become deeply adrift in ways that make it almost unrecognizable,” he wrote. “Moral relativism has fueled the university’s race to the bottom and sadly now has reached a point where remaining impartial is no longer an option. The university’s silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism.”
It’s about time.
The day everything changed
The events of October 7 have deeply affected Jews and others around the world, including many who previously were not particularly attached to Israel. As The New York Times noted in a report about donors withholding funds from universities due to their responses to the massacre, “some, but not all, of these donors are Jewish, though they hold a range of religious beliefs and not all have a history of being active in pro-Israeli causes.”
For many Jews, it seems, this is a watershed moment.
For far too long, universities have enjoyed the beneficence of Jewish donors while doing little to ensure that Jewish students experience academic environments free of hate and intimidation. Directly or indirectly, Jewish donors have been paying the salaries of professors who bully Jewish students, funding student groups that engage in anti-Zionist antisemitism, and subsidizing events in which the Jewish state and its supporters are demonized.Not anymore.
In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, more and more Jewish donors are – quite literally – putting their money where their mouths are, making clear that they will no longer stand to see their alma maters transformed into hotbeds of anti-Jewish hate.
Let’s hope administrators take note and do what they must to ensure Jewish students, like all students, feel safe on campus.