Should Harvard and MIT fire their presidents? Either way, it’s bad for the Jews
The truth is that neither cracking down on hate speech or letting it continue is particularly good for us
A “Coalition Against Apartheid” poster on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass. on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023 Photo by Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Jason Fields December 13, 2023
The last two months have been filled with so much horror for Jews that it’s hard to remember we have been on a long winning streak. In the last 75 years, we have gained a state of our own and a cultural prominence my grandfather — himself part of the upward journey — could never have imagined. Even as he fought to become a successful lawyer, he also fought to fit in. The family name was Finkelstein. You may notice the byline says Fields.
But I worry that it’s this very success of American Jews that has brought on the displeasure of our hosts, as we are once again marked out by them and made to be strangers in a strange land.
It’s a fight that’s hitting our kids first. Antisemitism is running roughshod across college campuses, and university presidents have a hell of a job in front of them.
Some campus administrators frame calls for a “free Palestine” that stretches “from the river to the sea,” as a free speech issue, others as a disciplinary matter. Many can’t decide who most needs protection, the Jewish students who are being targeted and intimidated, or those shouting slogans they may not even understand.
The truth is that neither cracking down on hate speech or letting it continue is particularly good for the Jews. Either angry young students feel they are being repressed and have a new grievance to add to their endless list, or they are given free reign to terrorize Jewish kids who mostly just want to get to class, have a free meal at Hillel and maybe meet a nice Jewish girl or boy.
College presidents can never be absolved of responsibility for what happens on their campuses. But there may ultimately be no right choice for them. What happens on the quad is often just a symptom of bigger societal problems.
The conditions are ripe for a spike of antisemitism in this country, beyond even what we’ve seen since former President Donald Trump made hating Jews cool again. American Jews have reached a level of prominence that makes many of our neighbors, consciously or not, uncomfortable.
This is an incredible time to be Jewish.
Jews were at the fore of both the writer and actor strikes this year. And Jews are also rightly known for their outsize achievements in the sciences and academia in general. Not to mention the contributions to literature, music and — despite the jokes — athletics.
Despite making up only 2.5% of the U.S. population, 26 of 435 members (6%) of the House of Representatives are Jewish, as are 9 of our 100 senators, including the majority leader. Fully 50% of political donations to the Democratic Party come from Jews. (For the Republicans, it’s 25%.)
These successes have come back to bite us on the, well, tuches. Jewish students are labeled as white, and thus members of the oppressive class. Jews, by virtue of our “whiteness” (no matter what color we happen to be), are creatures of immense privilege. The Palestinians are officially oppressed, and it is no longer our turn to be victims, no matter what happens to us. The world has moved on.
And our children feel it. Taught to “check their privilege” by teachers and peers, our kids feel an immense guilt that can only be absolved by denouncing their people. Some even join marches against the Jewish state and call out for their own people’s destruction.
What is happening on many college (and even high school) campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 slaughter of Jews by Hamas and Israel’s military response in Gaza may not have started out as antisemitism. But it sure has become it.
Many pro-Palestinian protesters aren’t calling for peace in Gaza, but an end to Israel and the Jewish people. Jewish professors who have said little or nothing about Gaza have told me they have been followed, splattered in red paint, verbally assaulted and threatened with worse. These aren’t even professors who work on the fraught topics of Middle East studies. Their Jewishness alone has made it open season to disrupt lectures and intimidate them daily. And the scare tactics show a disturbing consistency, suggesting a carefully scripted playbook.
The response by other students, faculty and college leadership has varied. But when the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania (where my father went), Harvard (where my mother went) and MIT (where I didn’t get in) were grilled by Congress, Liz Magill, Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth couldn’t find the words: “We are not OK with direct calls for genocide against Jews.”
The words just weren’t there.
Magill has since stepped down. And prominent commentators and philanthropists continue to call for the others to as well. Many philanthropists have coupled those “calls” with threats that their multi-million dollar gifts will be withdrawn if the presidents stay on. In one example, Penn may lose a $100 million donation from Ross Stevens, who moved to pull it after the hearing. (An action that worries some Jews because of the financial might it displays.)
Magill resigned along with Penn’s chairman of the board of trustees, Scott Bok. But the aftermath is sure to spark conspiracy theories about undue Jewish power.
Julie Beren Platt, whose day job is running the Jewish Federations of North America, has been named interim board chair.That’s both wonderful and terrible: that a proud Jew can reach so high; that other Jews are bracing themselves for conspiracy theories likely to follow.
We now wait to see if other college presidents are similarly deposed. But either way things go, it’s unlikely to be good for the Jews.
Clarification: An earlier version of this column said Penn had lost a $100 million donation. In fact, Stevens had threatened to withdraw the donation unless Magill was replaced.
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