Radical Faculty Groups Drive Campus Antisemitism

It should come as no surprise that the presence of organizations supporting an anti-Israel/pro-terror agenda—such as BDS, SJP, and their various offshoots—contribute to antisemitic activity on our campuses (for a primer, see our recent post here). These groups are coordinated by national organizations and supported by Islamist regimes and Jihadist organizations. What might come as a surprise, however, is how these groups gain a foothold on university campuses. According to a new report published by AMCHA (a group dedicated to documenting antisemitic activity on US campuses) that foothold is being provided nationwide by a faculty-led network called Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP). From AMCHA’s bulletin:

In the 10 months following Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel, a surge of anti-Israel protests gripped U.S. campuses and were accompanied by an explosion of violent antisemitism: physical assaults on Jewish students skyrocketed by 2,500% over the previous year, and threats of physical violence, including death threats, increased by 900%.

AMCHA Initiative's groundbreaking report, released today, reveals that Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), a nationwide network of over 100 faculty chapters established after the Hamas attack, has been fueling the surge of campus unrest and antisemitic violence, and aggressively advancing the BDS movement’s academic efforts.

FJP chapters were created in response to a directive from the U.S. arm of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)—a key founder of the BDS movement, which is linked to organizations associated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. State Department.

Our report examined more than 100 colleges and universities with large Jewish populations from 10/7/23 to 6/30/24.

Its findings are extremely alarming:   

• FJP Chapters Established Nationwide: More than 50% of the schools investigated established an FJP chapter after Hamas' attack. These faculty groups were charged with vigorously promoting PACBI’s academic boycott of Israel campaign (academic BDS), whose guidelines call on faculty to carry out actions to purge their campuses of Zionism and Zionists.  

• Correlation Between FJP Presence and Physical Assault: Jewish students on campuses with FJP chapters were 7.3 times more likely to be subjected to physical assault than Jewish students on campuses with no FJP chapter.  

• Correlation Between FJP Presence and Violent Threats: Jewish students on campuses with FJP chapters were 3.4 times more likely to face violent threats and death threats against them. 

• Faculty-Prolonged Protests and Encampments: FJP faculty were implicated in prolonging anti-Israel protests, with encampments likely to last 4.7 times longer on campuses with FJP groups. Faculty on campuses with an FJP group were likely to have been involved in 9.5 times more days of anti-Israel protest activities than faculty on campuses with no FJP group.

• BDS Resolutions and Academic Boycotts: FJP played a pivotal role in advancing the BDS movement. At schools with an FJP chapter, anti-Israel divestment resolutions were 4.9 times more likely to pass in student government votes, and calls for academic BDS nearly 11 times more likely to be included in student demands, than at schools with no FJP chapter.

The report and its findings are discussed in an article in the Jewish Journal.

AMCHA is also spearheading a petition to university administrators of universities that have FJP chapters (USC is one of them), urging them to take forceful and immediate steps to curb faculty-fueled antisemitism.

How Radical Faculty Exploit their Positions to Promote Antisemitic Indoctrination

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Dara Horn illustrates how faculty spread antisemitic propaganda through their courses (“Harvard’s Antisemitism Begins in the Classroom,” September 27, 2024; archived version here):

I had the dubious distinction last fall of serving on Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group. It went so badly that I wound up as a witness in Congress’s investigation of Harvard. When I spoke at a summit for the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance last week, I had to be escorted across campus by an armed guard.

At our advisory group’s first meeting last October, a senior Harvard administrator admitted, “Students are very ignorant about the Middle East or Israel or Zionism.” If only there were an educational institution with a $50.7 billion endowment that could address that ignorance.

No one in the advisory group argued against free speech. Students can chant “globalize the intifada” all they want. As the screaming students point out, “intifada” simply means “uprising.” True. Also, “Sieg Heil” simply means “Hail victory,” and Confederate flags are simply regional symbols. Students can scream whatever racist things they like. But this evades the question: Why is Harvard full of screaming racists? [Emphasis ours]

The answer is sobering. Not only does Harvard fail to offer education and programming on the Middle East, its curriculum is full of propaganda courses that lack academic rigor and should not have been approved in the first place. The article gives a couple of examples:

Harvard’s School of Public Health, for instance, has a partnership program with Birzeit University in Ramallah. Harvard is usually allergic to bigotry—so much so that it changed its official law school crest in 2021 to avoid connections with a slaveholder who died centuries ago. At Birzeit, buildings are named after antisemitic murderers and students host Hamas military parades. Why does Harvard maintain a partnership with Birzeit, of all the universities on the planet? (In July Harvard moved the partnership program from the West Bank to Jordan due to “security concerns”—though not, presumably, due to Birzeit’s institutional enthusiasm for murdering Jews.)

Harvard’s educational approach to the Middle East is best described as what the journalist Matti Friedman calls the “America-Italy conflict.” The U.S. invaded Italy in 1943, but instead of calling this the “America-Italy conflict,” we call it World War II. By contrast, Harvard is diligently teaching future leaders about the Middle East in the near-exclusive context of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Harvard’s Center for Middle East Studies hosted the same number of events about Gaza and the West Bank as it did about Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt combined. The Harvard course catalogue and events calendar frequently feature “Palestine” and “decolonization.” But students need to dig deep to find a course or lecture mentioning that Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran, or that Israel has been fighting a multifront war against Iran for decades. Harvard is a pipeline to the State Department, so that future diplomats are carefully studying the America-Italy conflict.

These deep issues raised by Horn are also relevant to USC. Our students—and many faculty—are shockingly ignorant about the Middle East, Jewish history, and Israel. Filling this void by unbiased programming and education (not trainings!) would be a noble undertaking, one fully aligned with the university’s mission of educating young minds. This was one of the recommendations of the Jewish Life Committee in August 2022, which the administration has not implemented (see our Report on Campus Climate and Call for Action for details). We have also shed light on examples of USC faculty abusing their position in the classroom—by cancelling final exams and sending their students to join illegal protests instead, by introducing propaganda materials unrelated to the course’s subject into course reading lists, etc. The academic rigor of USC course offerings needs to be audited—e.g., we remain puzzled about what exactly is being taught in USC’s Genocide Studies program.

Protests and Antisemitic Incidents on US Campuses This Fall

A recent issue of BDS Monitor (published by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East) provides statistics on campus antisemitism and examples of antisemitic incidents on campus.

The new semester began with a renewed round of pro-Hamas protests, partially constrained by new university regulations and by suspensions of anti-Israel groups. Research now shows that faculty have taken the lead attacking Israel as well as pro-Israel students and colleagues. A new front has also opened with legal challenges to those restrictions and to antisemitism training. Islamist legal challenges to any oversight or restrictions on anti-Israel and antisemitic activities now extend from the K-12 through university levels, and from municipalities to the Federal government. Continued targeting of Jewish institutions on campus including Hillels puts the entire participation of Jews in education in question….

Violent anti-Israel protests continued in September as new FBI statistics show that Jews were the most frequent targets of hate crimes in the US in 2023.

The letter provides a shockingly long (it is only October!) list of incidents targeting Jewish students—some violent—and campus vandalism. In many cases, the perpetrators face no consequences. It also highlights the role of SJP in all of this:

As has long been the case ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ is taking the lead in organizing anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests on campus:

• The National SJP announced a ‘Week of Rage’ would begin on October 7.

• The Rutgers University SJP chapter protested its suspension in front of an administration building, stating menacingly that it was “Strike Three” for the university.

• At William and Mary College the SJP chapter led a walkout and chanted “intifada revolution” and “we don’t want two states, take us back to ‘48.”

• At the University of Minnesota SJP protestors along with students from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), UMN Divest, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) disrupted the inauguration of the school’s new president.

• The Columbia University ‘Apartheid Divest’ coalition released a statement praising the Houthi missile attack on Israel, noting the support for the attack from Hamas, the PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and ending with “Glory to the resistance.”

SJP at USC

SJP continues to be active on the USC campus. Despite not being accredited by the university, they continue to freely organize illegal protests and disruptions.

Radical Faculty at USC: Faculty for Justice in Palestine

Paraphrasing Horn’s oped about Harvard, we ask: “Why is USC full of screaming antisemites and Hamas-loving terrorists in the making?”

AMCHA’s report mentions USCs “Palestine Justice Faculty Group.” According to the report, the group has organized four events and published three statements. The chapter is also listed on the Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network website. The Back To School Statement published on their website provides a glimpse into their agenda:

FJP chapters have played an important role during the last ten months. There are now almost 120 campuses in the national network, and several groups are in a state of formation. Of the three major campaigns promoted by NFJP this year, one of the largest achievements was retraction of the national AAUP’s ban on boycotts. University administrators can no longer portray pro-Palestinian advocacy as out of alignment with AAUP principles. Moreover, in a recent statement, strenuously titled, “Professors Are Not the Enemy. Fascists Are,” the new AAUP leadership has come out fighting against right-wing attacks on university professors.

Our second campaign, for Divestment, has seen mixed results. Along with some solid gains, there has been some predictable backsliding from administrators who were willing to make hollow promises to students to get them to leave the encampments in late Spring. Our students won’t be fooled again.

The third campaign, to dismantle Study Abroad in Israel programs, has enormous potential. Israeli universities have been fully complicit in the Gazan scholasticide; not a single one is on record as opposing the genocide, let alone calling for a ceasefire. Our administrations cannot justify their continued relationship with Israel institutions. Their study abroad programs have never been more vulnerable, while restrictions on entry into Israel are in clear violation of the same campus antidiscrimination codes that have been weaponized this past year against pro-Palestinian speech and action. We call on chapters to respond to the decision of the BDS leadership in Palestine to prioritize the study abroad campaigns; almost every campus has a program, and their operation is an infringement of institutional rules. Now is the time to shut them down. 

As the statement shows, FJP has close ties to the AAUP, FJP even taking credit for AAUP’s recent, shameful reversal of their policy against academic boycotts (which we covered here and here).

We must not underestimate FJP. It is a rabidly antisemitic organization which promotes campus disruptions and vandalism and contributes to the persistent and pervasive antisemitism on our campus. While faculty have freedom to associate with any reprehensible organization they choose and are free to hold the most reprehensible beliefs, they should be held accountable when those beliefs translate into reprehensible acts that violate university rules—and possibly laws.

USC Religious Center Celebrates Terror on October 8, Annenberg Media Cheerleading

According to Annenberg Media (“One Year into Israel-Hamas War, Pro-Palestinian Groups at USC Host ‘The Art of Resistance’” Maxwell Reinardy, October 8, 2024):

Around 100 students gathered at the University Religious Center on the evening of October 8 to learn about generations of Palestinian film, paintings, drawings, theater, music and poetry in “The Art of Resistance,” hosted by the USC Divest From Death Coalition, Jewish Voices for Peace USC, SCALE at USC, USC SJP and USC Graduate Students for Palestine…

The event is part of the coalition’s “Week of Rage” programming, which included the walkout event on October 7, marking one year since Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attacks began. Student organizers said on Instagram that the events were held to note “one year of genocide and one year of resistance” as they protest the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians….

“The goal of tonight was to really emphasize that resistance and steadfastness come in all different forms. It’s not just doctors who refuse to leave their post in Gaza when the IOF threatens to kill them, or the journalists who are continuing to report in North Gaza despite the fact that the IOF is targeting them,” an SJP student representative, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “We wanted to highlight today how art specifically, through all its mediums, whether it’s poetry, painting, music, film, all of these different mediums have resisted Israeli occupation for the past 76 years.”

None of the mentioned groups are accredited by USC. Why, then, are they permitted to organize events on the USC campus? In response to an inquiry by a Circle member, Ben Cutter, Director of Advancement at Hillel, has clarified in an email that the event was duly registered by the USC Muslim Student Union, a recognized campus organization. The Muslim Student Union then invited a host of unaccredited groups such as the USC Divest From Death Coalition, Jewish Voices for Peace USC, SCALE at USC, USC SJP and USC Graduate Students for Palestine to participate in the program. We wonder how exactly the event was described by the Muslim Student Union when they registered it? Did they misrepresent the scope of what they intended to do or was it a failure of the Religious Center to allow this celebration of terror through art to proceed under its auspices? Who is in charge of this Religious Center?

The Art of Antisemitism

The following colorful image was seen on a door of a USC professor on September 27, 2024.

Posted on a faculty office door at USC (09/27/2024; reported by a Circle member)

The image is a based on Pablo Picasso’s piece Guernica:

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (1937).

Picasso’s Guernica is a famous anti-war painting, speaking to the horrors of war and the suffering it causes. The image above it, posted on the office door of a USC professor of Art History, History and Classics, has adorned Guernica with the word “Gaza,” with drawings of bombs labeled “USA,” and with an image of an evil-looking Jew with a big nose and a machine gun (in case the big nose was not sufficiently clear, the artist added Hebrew writing). This is high-level scholarship—not your average hand-drawn swastika. We should be proud of our enlightened colleague!

Newsom Signs Laws to Rein in Campus Protests and Antisemitic Harassment

According to Politico (“Gavin Newsom Signs Laws to Rein in Gaza Protests at Universities,” by Blake Jones, September 28, 2024),

Gov. Gavin Newsom … signed legislation that will require public universities in California to update their codes of conduct and train students on how to protest with civility…

Universities will also have to add mandatory anti-discrimination training for students under the laws, which were introduced by Jewish lawmakers with the aim of counteracting antisemitic harassment that has reportedly spiked on college campuses since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year…

In addition to this round of legislation, Newsom also signed a bill meant to prevent “hate littering”—the distribution of flyers and other materials on private property that threaten or harass people based on their identity.