November 7, 2023
NOTE: Due to an error at the Daily Telegraph this column did not run. Instead, the BDT ran last week's column two weeks in a row. This column was updated and ran on 11-14-23
What is happening on a lot of the country’s college and university campuses these days is quite troubling. Back in the “good old days” young people went to college to study a subject with which they could get a job that would provide them with enough income to live a decent life. They went there to get educated, and the school faculty and administration were heavily focused on that mission.
In far too many schools these days, there are majors that do not prepare students to get a decent paying job, if they can even get a job in their major.
Many colleges are more focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion; everyone being identified by their chosen pronouns; making sure students are not offended in their classes; being presented with history lessons that stray from real history; and being instructed on what to think, rather than how to think.
A new problem has taken over the news since the October 7 evil massacre of 1,400 innocent Israel civilians by Hamas terrorists from Palestine.
Somehow, an existing anti-Israel sentiment on many campuses has resulted in the advocates of this mindset blaming Israel for retaliating for the Hamas savagery, instead of condemning the barbarians for murdering civilian men, women and children. Some of the children were babies and some of the men and women were elderly.
The subsequent protests of hundreds or thousands of misguided students on several campuses has produced dangerous threats of violence against Jewish students, whether they are from Israel or even America.
College administrations have inexplicably been less than responsive to these threats and the vile protests. Yes, allowing expressions of thoughts and feelings is permissible, even encouraged, particularly on college campuses where students are learning about adult life and their chosen major. Such speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
But expressions of hatred toward a particular person or group of persons is not permissible, and supporting terrorism is unacceptable. Those activities should have been stopped immediately.
How did such a huge and violent hatred of Israel come to exist on college and university campuses? A hatred so strong that the haters do not condemn savage terrorism, but condemn Israel for responding to it, as any nation has the right and duty to do.
Perhaps the following examples will help explain how this hatred came about.
A Cornell professor publicly expressed his opinion of watching Hamas terrorists commit these savage acts against Israeli civilians. It was “exhilarating” and “energizing,” he said. Unfortunately, some of his fellow faculty members then went public with condemnation of Israel for things it didn’t do. Truth plays second fiddle to political and ideological preferences among many college faculty members.
People at other institutions, like Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale, Georgetown, and Columbia, also jumped on the propaganda band wagon, blaming Israel for bombing a Palestinian hospital. Investigations found that the hospital was not bombed by Israel, but was hit by an off-course rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad, a terrorist partner of Hamas, both funded by Iran.
At a rally at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, an adjunct professor accused Israel of carrying out 75 years of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” against Palestinians. Later, New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a graduate of the school, claimed that Israelis, being “European converts to Judaism,” had no claim over their land.
Many people do not know what happened, or do not care, and continue to blame Israel.
Do these radical professors keep their political and ideological preferences out of their classroom activities, even though they are happy to publicly express them in ways their students and other students may have access to them? Are they part of the indoctrination of college students that has proliferated over recent years?
Deliberate efforts to influence students’ thinking processes by pushing their personal ideals onto students is not only a breach of professional integrity and a showing of low character, but is subversive when it includes un-American and anti-American ideas.
While college administrations have been reluctant to respond, criticism of what is going on exists from other people in positions of responsibility.
Last month, U.S. Senators sponsored a resolution calling on higher education leaders to engage with Jewish students and to condemn speech that incites or celebrates violence against any people based on their religious beliefs, national origin or ancestry. The group consisted of both Republicans and Democrats: Marsha Blackburn, R-TN; Jack Rosen, D-NV; James Lankford, R-OK; and Chris Van Hollen, D-MD.
A few days later, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued this statement in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News Channel: “While we always want to protect our constitutional rights, I absolutely condemn what’s being chanted at these rallies, and I think we need leadership from our college campuses.” Citing the increasingly common idea of what is occurring on college campuses, he said, “The bottom line is, I question what’s being taught on these college campuses if we have students that don’t fully understand the brutality of a terrorist group.”
This ignorance of what happened on October 7, and the strong anti-Semitism are clear evidence that America’s values and traditions are under attack on many campuses.
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