Antisemitism on campus is no surprise

OPINION:

“This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.”

So declared the Yale Daily News “correction” to Yale sophomore Sahar Tartak’s column. Sadly, that was not the only editorial note from the oldest college daily that attempted to erase the mass rape that occurred in Israel on Oct. 7.

“Believe all women” apparently doesn’t apply to Jewish women.

In the days since this editorial note was added, there has been considerable outrage, and not without cause. Though the note has since been retracted following public outcry, many were understandably shocked that the Yale Daily News’ editorial staff would descend so low in the first place.

But this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. The recent surge in antisemitism on campus that has shocked America and driven major donors from the Ivy League is a direct result of the diversity, equity and inclusion policies our universities have championed for years.

Yale and other elite universities have long been going out of their way to attract students and faculty who are activists first. In February 2018, a Yale admissions officer wrote that not only would high school students who are suspended for walking out in support of the liberal cause of the day not be penalized in their applications, but stated that Yale “expects” applicants to be “versed in issues of social justice.”

These social justice criteria lead universities to admit students and recruit faculty who minimize or even celebrate terrorism and mass atrocities. These policies bring in professors like Yale’s Zareena Grewal who believe Israel is a “settler colonial state,” and therefore its inhabitants — including women, children and babies — are fair game for “armed struggle.”

The dangerous DEI dogma bleeds through to the rest of campus. In 2021, the Yale College Council adopted a “Statement of Condemnation,” which accuses Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide” and calls on “all Yale students to recognize the connections between the U.S.’s domestic racial oppression and its imperial oppression against people of color worldwide.”

Alarmingly, the “Statement of Condemnation” was drafted by Yalies 4 Palestine, a student group that in recent weeks blamed Israel for Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities and proudly stood “in full support of the Palestinian people’s right to resist colonization.”

Compare the Yale Daily News’ treatment of Hamas to Yale Law School professor Amy Chua. Last month, Ms. Chua received a $10,000 award for supporting intellectual diversity in the classroom in defiance of the pressure toward ideological conformity.

The Yale Daily News headlined the story with allegations against Ms. Chua that she has long denied and which two students refused to corroborate despite pressure from administrators. Yet the same newspaper rejected contemporaneous witness accounts and video evidence of Hamas’ acts of rape and sexual assault as “unsubstantiated claims” because the targeted women were not part of a community they see as oppressed. Believe women? Only when it serves the progressive narrative.

Clearly, admissions offices at elite universities are missing something as they review applications. But they aren’t the only ones to blame. It’s important to understand that what is happening on college campuses is neither an accident nor an overnight development.

A recent Buckley Institute survey shows that 45% of American college students support violence to stop hate speech. This year’s result was the tightest agree-disagree margin in seven years of asking this question. It’s not difficult to imagine what atrocities enforcers of campus groupthink will support for those they consider oppressors.

The events of the past few weeks have offered a wake-up call to donors that is long overdue. Many are publicly closing their wallets. This is a welcome development, but a comprehensive reevaluation of the priorities of universities across our country must follow. DEI and the idolization of activism have emboldened antisemitism on campus.