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Finally! Accountability for Anti-Semitic Activities on Campus
The universities have abandoned their mandate to educate students and provide a safe environment for learning. Because they are primarily Leftists, they favor those causes, including blaming Israel for the war in Gaza and supporting Hamas. So, these academics are not in the least interested in condemning and punishing students and infiltrators to their schools who support not only rioting on behalf of terrorists, but attacking Jews on their campuses. The campus is no longer a safe learning environment:
Campus antisemitism isn’t restricted to these widely publicized incidents. Some Jewish parents say their children privately admit to feeling unsafe on campus. A survey by Alums for Campus Fairness finds ‘44% of Jewish students report never or rarely feeling safe identifying as a Jew at their school.’
Since the universities have refused to step up and condemn and punish anti-Semitic activities on campus, the federal government is stepping in. I hate seeing the government take this role, but since the colleges refuse to take ethical and protective steps for their Jewish students, I’m glad to see someone with the courage to do the right thing.
In this instance, the man of courage is Senator Marco Rubio. He has watched prosecutors quietly drop charges against rioters, and administrators try to negotiate with belligerent students. This week he will propose the Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campuses Act:
‘[It] would extend Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to cover religious discrimination (with an exception for religious institutions). It would also explicitly prohibit harassment or discrimination ‘on the basis of actual or perceived Jewish ancestry or actual or perceived Jewish religion.’
Senator Rubio is adamant about the necessity for this legislation:
Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t fund nor facilitate pro-terrorist activities, and Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) should take action in preventing harassment by terrorism supporters. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced the Ending Subsidies for Pro-Terrorist Activities on Campus Act to ensure federal dollars are not being used to support pro-terrorist activities on college campuses and require that IHEs have policies to address them.
Typically, the Department of Education gives a slap on the hand to these colleges. But now those colleges who don’t comply will pay a penalty:
Academic programs would receive a clear warning for the first offense, escalating to a 10% reduction of federal assistance after the second and a 33% reduction after the third. That would ensure that all students receive an education free of discrimination and harassment.
You might assume that academics who are supposedly dedicated to education and learning would make sure that students could study in a safe environment. You would be wrong.
I have written an email to Senator Rubio, recommending that requirements of enforcement by the IHEs also be included. Otherwise, they could easily ignore the new requirements.
With anti-Semitism growing, we can no longer afford to look the other way.
You only need to watch the first 36 seconds.
Published in Education
We could just have the federal government stop spending taxpayer dollars for education to include student tuition, research, administrative, and anything else. There are plenty of other sources to fund these activities.
But will those sources require the stopping of anti-Semitic activities?
Up to them if private sources and up to the people if one of the United States. Each individual is free to express opinions.
So you don’t object to the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protests on the campus?
I do. But there is a difference between my opinion and any legal requirement. Federal funding of education just makes the issue more confounding to me because I object to my tax dollars funding activities doing things I object to. But I support free speech. So my own federal government, by funding these anti-free speech activities, is using my money to support causes I object to.
And anti-Jewish is different from anti-Israel and pro-Hamas.
Is it a distinction that matters in this context, Bob?
It sounds like you’re proposing an even larger action, and if you are, I tend to agree: why provide funds to the colleges at all? Many of have larger donor sources in the millions, so why are we giving them federal dollars? But that leads to another question: if Jewish students continue to be harassed, banned from entering certain areas of campus, physically attacked, and the universities won’t protect them, then what? I guess students will have to ask whether that’s an environment they want to study in…?
If a behavior, such as protests on campus, is directed at members of an ethnic or racial group, I object and do not want to support that in any form. If directed at a government or similar entity, I cannot object unless I am privy to the underlying specifics which can be difficult to gain access to in this age when so many government actions are taken in secret.
I don’t support our federal government involvement in education at any level beyond that required by the Constitution which I think would pretty well limit it to protecting individual civil rights. No funding or regulating educational processes or research.
We’re on the same page, Bob. Except if there are Jewish students being attacked, how do they protect themselves? Individually with the university? With law enforcement? With the federal government on civil rights charges? Maybe they need to have a collective lawsuit against the university? But what happens in the meantime?
Much the same as Blacks have faced – unjustifiable behavior. Power to prevent would rest with the university.
That Benjamin person was so shockingly hypocritical that even I was appalled. I guess being appalled is getting very normal these days. The Jewish woman who accuses Israel of killing babies that are put in harm intentionally by the Palestinian Hamas (if there is any distinction) while standing in front of this camera will walk around the corner to another camera and support a million abortions per year right in her own country. The Jews living in Israel should die at the hands of Hamas while the Jewish babies not yet born in America should die at the hands of abortionists. The only consistent murderer in this story is Benjamin herself!
Did I see the same YouTube video? I saw Sen. Rubio being ambush interviewed and then afterward Benjamin set up her camera to make a speech in the hallway in front of his office.
If you’re asking me @cdor, yes, I included the video because of the insanity of the left; those are part of the group attacking the Jews on campus. It will be interesting to see whether Rubio’s bill will be passed; I’m sensing that some people may feel that the Jews need to fend for themselves. I think that is basically what @bobthompson thinks. What do you think?
The interesting fact about Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is that the political Left is for using it to protect blacks against the evil white population. So on campuses, there are probably few physical and verbal attacks on blacks. But I think the Jews are not supported, and people may feel they are on their own, since some of the left see Jews as oppressors. That is interesting and may be worthy of a post on its own.
Part of “fending for oneself” in a lawful manner in a civilized country is encouraging elected officials to pass laws of protection, enforcing laws that are already established, and withholding government funds from institutions that do not follow the rules while receiving those funds. Does Bob think that Jewish students should form armed protective squads? I don’t understand what he means. I didn’t read his comments yet.
I don’t like the fact that the approach I’m going to say I favor in the next sentence even exist but I think it is a good short cut to get the proper action. University officials can stop anti-Semitic behavior on campus or have their federal funds stopped.
Civil actions (legal) take an inordinate amount of time.
It would be a good start if they would enforce the basic bounds of peaceful protest. Occupy a building? Off to jail. Vandalize anything? Off to jail. Block foot or vehicle traffic? Off to jail. Do it on a student visa, revoke the visa and deport. Looting? Off to jail. Mass looting? Troops with orders to shoot.
Excellent recommendation! What’s so hard?
I remember many other groups claiming that they felt “unsafe” on campus, in prior years, generally as a way to silence criticism. We conservatives used to routinely mock such claims.
I think that these claims by Jews are just the same. I think that it’s simply false that there have been any significant number of actual attacks on Jews on American campuses. I’ve seen attacks by Jews, specifically a terrible one at UCLA about 6 months ago.
I am not on campus, though, so I can’t speak from personal knowledge.
I see no report of a single attack on a Jew on campus. Not even one, let alone enough to make a difference. If anyone has any data on this, please provide it.
I can’t wait for Jerry’s explanation of how students who were threatened into holing up in a school library etc, were actually the aggressors.
FWIW, results of a quick search at bing:
U-M student attacked after being asked if he was Jewish, leaving Ann Arbor community on edge (msn.com)
Suspect arrested after attack on Jewish University of Pittsburgh students | CNN
Back in the early 2000s, I used to listen to Lee Rodgers, Melanie Morgan, and “Officer Vic” on my morning drive to work. Benjamin was a frequent subject of conversation among the group. IIRC, she was involved with Code Pink back then and a general pain in the sphincter.
I think we’ll be hearing about these kinds of incidents more and more. I’m glad to learn law enforcement was involved. Protests are trickier to deal with. Thanks, Django.
No problem, and not much effort required. It took less than two minutes to enter a search string and find those two recent examples. There were others, but the point is made.
Today there is an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by two Yale students, about Yale’s pathetic effort to appear even-handed, by treating the Palestinian students and Jews as if their positions are the same. They rank Islamaphobia up there with anti-Semitism, even though are next to zero (if any) incidents of Muslim hatred. I thought I’d share the last part of the essay (since it’s probably behind a paywall):
After Outrage, Wake Forest University Cancels October 7 Event Featuring Anti-Jewish Hamas Cheerleader | The Gateway Pundit | by Margaret Flavin
Excellent!! So when students push back hard,–real hard–there’s an administration that listens. Good for them! Thanks again, Django.
The real problem, of course, is that someone came up with it in the first place, and somehow thought it was a good idea.
Hopefully there is a lot of “what the hell were we thinking?” going on now.
Oh, I doubt it, ke. These are lessons that people seldom learn. I wouldn’t be surprised for them to try something like that again. Sigh.
Well, you see, he’s not on campus so he can’t speak with personal knowledge. But…he can speak with personal bias and antipathy.
Expressing opinions is different from harassing, intimidating, and attacking students. The demonstrators that are doing so are “privately” funded by Soros and Islamist organizations and governments. The Act should call for criminal charges against anyone or group funding such actives, and also charge criminally University administrators who allow them. Tax status for Tax exempt organizations that fund these activities should be withdrawn, and economic and criminal sanctions applied to foreign governments who fund them. This is a not so cold Civil War that is being waged on college campuses, Jews attacked first, and needs to be prosecuted as such. Perp walking a few College Presidents to face criminal charges would certainly help. Politicians who post bail for those arrested committing such actions should also be criminally charged as accessories after the fact.
I went to Med School at UCLA in the 1970s when the faculty was in large part Jewish and the largest Jewish population in the world outside of New York and Tel Aviv was in West Los Angeles. Nothing like this was imaginable at that time. Now UCLA is an epicenter of anti-Semitic activity and Jewish student harassment and intimidation, to the point that they have been unable to attend classes or walk on campus in safety. An utter shame for my alma mater.