http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/the-alarming-rise-of-campus-anti-semitism/print/
Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is growing at an alarming rate. It has escalated to the point that Jewish students on campuses have been physically attacked or threatened for peacefully demonstrating their support of Israel. Events demonizing Jews and even glorifying the murderers of Jews, in the guise of anti-Israel rhetoric, are tolerated by campus administrators despite the hostile environment such events create for Jewish students who are open about their beliefs in support of the Jewish state.
Title VI of the Civil Rights act of 1964 prohibits various forms of discrimination at federally funded programs, including higher educational institutions, but the Obama administration’s Department of Education has so far refused to enforce it against federally funded universities and colleges that have allowed anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students to go on with relative impunity. For example, in a letter rejecting a complaint that had accused a California state university of allowing a hostile environment for Jewish students to exist on campus, the education department’s Office for Civil Rights wrote: “In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience. In this context, the events that the complainants described do not constitute actionable harassment.”
The same administration that decries even the slightest hint of so-called Islamophobia has treated hate speech and threats against Jewish students, which create a hostile environment for them, as the legitimate exercise of free speech. This double standard is only encouraging more hate and threats directed at Jewish students.
A study of Religious Tolerance on Campus published by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in December of 2011, entitled “ALONE ON THE QUAD: Understanding Jewish Student Isolation on Campus,” surveyed over 1,400 students in the United States. The Institute, which claims its survey to be one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, found that “Over 40% of students confirm Anti-Semitism on their campus.”
“Ample anecdotal evidence suggests that, over the last decade, Jewish college students have faced rising levels of anti-Semitism on campuses across the United States,” the Institute’s report concluded. “[Anti-Israel] divestment campaigns, protests, rallies, guerrilla theater and inflammatory speakers have featured anti-Jewish rhetoric. With insufficient response from administrators, these events have developed into hostile environments, where Jewish students and others have been maligned and threatened.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents for 2012 showed an increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus – nearly triple the number of reported incidents in 2012 versus 2011. “Some of those incidents included the use of anti-Semitic imagery under the guise of anti-Israel activism, with conspiracy theories about Jewish political and economic control being voiced on campus,” the ADL report said.
To put a human face on these findings, consider the physical injury suffered by a UC Berkeley student, Jessica Felber. Ms. Felber was assaulted at a 2010 Apartheid Week event during which Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Muslim Student Association (MSA) established a mock checkpoint that included fake barbed wire and AK-47 firearms. At the time, Ms. Felber was holding a sign that said “Israel Wants Peace.” She claimed that a leader of SJP deliberately rammed a shopping cart into her back, causing injury that was serious enough to require medical attention.
