I’m unclear what your point is, so a clarification would help.
Are you saying that there aren’t anti-Semitic activities taking place on Harvard’s campus? Or that people are blowing things out of proportion? Or that Harvard kids are too smart/busy to offend/be offended?
Please clarify. Thanks.
I think these are reversed: bcos campuses have evolved to become politicized, nearly everything that happens in the world now demands a response from the Leadership. (Or at least some student group/faculty will demand it.). So, October 7 was just the next thing on which Admin was expected to opine. OTOH, if Unis like Columbia had really followed the U-Chicago principles, they wouldn’t be in this pickle.
Although I converted to Christianity as a young adult and my children were baptized, 3/4 of my grandparents were Jewish, including both of my mother’s parents.
So, as my kid discovered when I finally convinced them that they would be welcome at Hillel regardless of their heritage or upbringing, they are considered Jewish by the vast majority of Jewish people.
In the last couple of months, they have gone from knowing next to nothing about Judaism to knowing way more than I do.
I am just happy they found a welcoming place where all questions are allowed and no one opinion is enforced.
Happy to clarify. First, I don’t have a great handle on what is considered anti-Semitic recently. At a recent University board meeting involving many Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, 3 out of the 4 hour meeting was spent discussing what that term actually includes. There is disagreement as to how broad that term should be. A Jewish scholar recently wrote that if that cloak is stretched too far it can become invisible. Others may disagree.
My son in grade school is called by a racial epithet at least once a week in his school. In front of other kids. Why don’t we sue the school for millions of dollars? Because as any racial minority knows in this country, we know that these kinds of incidents are a tough fact of life that we will navigate and keep them in proportion. What ever happened to “sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me?” We’re all too fragile now?
As with any place, in my son’s school and at Harvard, there are many, many non-racists, but a few are. There are likewise many, many non-antisemites, and a few are. To the point above about antiSemitism, I don’t think everyone protesting against the deaths of Palestinians and the mounting humanitarian crisis including Jews for Ceasefire (for example) is antiSemitic. It’s probably more antiSemitic to assume every Jewish person supports Netanyahu. Lumping is part and parcel of bigotry.
If my 11 year old son and I can survive and flourish despite some episodes of rank racism, why can’t the tough, gritty 20 year old’s that got into Harvard figure it out? It’s the golden rule. I would expect Harvard kids to be able to handle what I and my family can and do. So yes, to your question, I do think my son’s too smart and busy to let those episodes consume his life. I didn’t. And if Harvard chose wisely, Harvard’s students wouldn’t either.
Perhaps Harvard should reintroduce the Jewish quota.
Aside from my own child’s experiences, I have a few thoughts/questions I have been mulling and I am going to be honest that I feel more confident in some and less confident in others.
Is there a difference between outdoor spaces, classroom buildings, and dormitories in terms of how universities should balance speech vs concerns about bigotry? For example, is there a difference between displaying a swastika in an outdoor protest vs. in the main lobby of a class building vs on a poster in a dorm common area? Some of these are more easily avoided than others.
College groups carry the name of the college, are entitled to reserve spaces, and receive college funding. In that respect, colleges are not just neutral and allowing exercise of speech, they are funding and platforming it. Would colleges permit students to form a KKK chapter, for example? Or are there limits on what groups may officially form and receiving funding and other rights afforded to campus groups?
The term “microaggressions” is cropping up. My understanding is that these are things that are indirect, subtle, or unintentional. Leaving aside one’s own interpretation of certain slogans, and going with that of the people who feel targeted, is calling to globalize the killing of people you consider to be like you really a microaggression? Or to eliminate a country where 45% of people you consider to be like yourself live, and perhaps you yourself call home? Or might a reasonable person consider these a direct aggression, possibly even fighting words?
For that matter, should colleges be differentiating between clearly political speech (protesting a war or a nation’s policy in that war or a politician and their administration) vs bigotry? Or is bigotry also speech that should be protected at all times at colleges and left to social mechanisms among students to police? Or if there is a distinction to be drawn, how do we draw it?
Protest is by nature disruptive. But colleges also have an educational mission. Should they impose restrictions on protests that disrupt indoor residential and classroom spaces?
And isn’t the flip side of deciding that your protest is so important that you must break laws and rules that you accept that there are potential consequences to your actions? If a student feels an issue is so important that they must disrupt the education of others to protest, then don’t they need to accept that their own education may be disrupted, in the form of suspension? They can certainly fight the suspension in hopes of overturning what they feel is an unjust rule…but ultimately they may have to accept that doing what they believe is right came at this cost. Does the college have the obligation to make this easy and cost-free for them?
I only bring it up to underscore the contrast between what is tolerated when targeted at Jews vs any other minorities on campus, and the bitter irony that the same SJW crowd that champions the entire idea of microaggression as a threat to safety and wellbeing of minority groups sees no hypocrisy in their current outrageous behavior.
Absolutely!
I’m sorry but your school administration should absolutely be taking action. I am not saying you should jump to suing the school by any means… but you have a right to demand the school takes action to address this.
No kid of any age should have to deal with this, especially at school.
Our state has regulations about this sort of thing in schools and procedures and channels for filing reports.
Honestly, it is even best for the kids saying these awful things if the school addresses it now, while they still have the chance to influence this sort of mindset and while the consequences and stakes are still relatively low.
And it is in the best interest of all students to see this is not tolerated or normal.
I regularly have conversations with my elementary and secondary aged kids about not bullying others and about checking in with friends and classmates if they notice someone is targeted…and standing up if they feel it is safe to do so and/or going with their classmates to support them if they want to report it.
Please realize also that many first years are not even 18 yet and they are often far from the support systems of home. The teenage years also see a spike in mental health concerns. This can be a difficult time.
Is there any “clearly political speech” left? Many argue that opposing Israel’s occupation of Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombing of civilian sites in Gaza that you might think are a “nation’s policy in that war” is actually a statement that - if you oppose our bombing, occupation or settlement, you’re denying Israel defensible borders. And therefore you are advocating for the eradication of Israel. And that means the killing of every Jewish person in Israel. And that means you favor the eradication of all Jewish people worldwide.
And that’s why defining antiSemitism is so hard these days.
As far as my reading on the subject, almost all of actual educational disruption is from students feeling “fearful” Have you been to Harvard Yard? There are about 5 libraries, tens of classrooms and buildings where a person can study if there is a disruption anywhere. It’s a pretty big and wide place. As to classes, it simply isn’t true that daily disruptions are preventing class from happening.
As to my son’s school, it’s easy to mount the high horse and say, “how can you tolerate it, you should act!”. That rings patronizingly untrue for a couple of reasons. First, it partially blames the victim for inaction. Second, it ignores the fact that in reality, some degree of bigotry is everywhere. You simply can’t chase bigotry everywhere because it’d be like trying to staple raindrops to the ground. Third, I’m glad that you teach your children to be good people. I do too. I also teach my kids to be tough. Saying this just isn’t helpful to the point. It’s like saying “I have a lot of colored friends”. Unfortunately, other parents in our town teach their kids terms like “rice farmer” and “sand n–er”. Trust me, any non-white minority person already knows all of these points. But it’s okay. We also know how to live with it.
Yes, I feel that what you describe is a continuum from least to most problematic. It was particularly difficult for my student when others on his dorm floor displayed extreme statements on their room doors. When it’s all over the dorm, it can make a student feel that they have nowhere to retreat, and make it harder to relate to other students.
Students also need space to change or adjust their views, and I feel that a display of extreme statements in the dorm can also make students feel locked in to the statements they are displaying; less able to be open to other views.
I feel like the Bay Area in general is less tolerant of moderate views. If you don’t support the ENTIRE pro-Palestinian platform, then you too are a genocidal occupier or some such thing, or so the rhetoric goes. I think there is a good deal of pressure to be on the extreme end and less opportunity to explore areas of grey when grey becomes synonymous with being complicit.
I think this kind of pressure also makes it very difficult for students to change or modify their views. So much of the rhetoric relies on all or nothing support, where things are painted in black and white.
The Jewish people (majority of whom are currently considered white, but weren’t always) have lived with prejudice - and died from it - for millennia.
So I am not entirely sure what the overarching point is. That modern American Jews aren’t as tough as some other minorities?
They aren’t as tough as their Israeli brothers and sisters, that is for sure. They didn’t have to be.
But they, too, aren’t going to take this beating lying down.
This is true in the bay area, but it also seems to be the case in a lot of other places (witness some of the stuff described in other parts of the US on this thread, or discussion on these forums in general…).
I will take this opportunity to promote a great group that works to reduce polarization and racism around these issues in the UK, Solutions Not Sides. I mentioned them on the other thread in the politics forum, but it could be worthwhile for folks here to look at, too 
They do workshops and trainings in the UK but also have helpful materials on their web site.
Yes, I went to graduate school at Harvard—I have lived there. We aren’t talking specifically or just about Harvard, regardless. I don’t see how the availability of multiple spaces on one particular campus is relevant to the question of whether or not protests should be allowed to disrupt the educational mission or that bigoted posters should be allowed to be displayed in campus common living areas?
The question boils down to whether everything is fair game (for example, someone standing outside the door of your classroom or even dorm room and shouting epithets in your face) or whether there are lines to be drawn, such as picketing 10 ft from the entrance to a classroom building or even inside the entry of a building during certain hours and not blocking entrance or exit?
Should universities be drawing lines as to time and place?
“All politics is personal,” I suppose. But as I said, I am asking questions.
Is there a distinction (in general) between saying Netanyahu (or Trump, or Putin) is a fascist and their policies are abhorrent versus saying “Jews control the media” or horrible things about other races that I don’t even want to give examples of.
I think a reasonable person could draw a distinction between criticizing Israeli policy in Gaza and the West Bank (which as part of a free society many Israelis themselves do) and calling for the likely extermination of 45% or more of the world’s Jews…but maybe not.
Except I did not say that in the slightest. I said you have the right to demand an elementary school take action.
And the fact that your children are able to deal with this (as far as you can tell right now) with your love and support does not mean it is okay for others to do this to them or that the school should tolerate it.
I am disgusted with the school—not with you.
Bigotry and discrimination may be facts of life but that does not mean a school should accept and tolerate it.
Interesting that you assume I have never been the target of bigotry. When I was a child, I was called bigoted names, there were swastikas drawn on the school desk, and a kid scattered pennies on the ground to see if I would pick them up because his dad said, “Jews are cheap.”
This is not on topic but you have zero idea of whether I am white or white presenting. Besides, Jewish people, including Ashkenazi, are closely related to Arab people and, absent dress and other cultural markers, often indistinguishable to others…or even each other.
Or maybe it is on topic because this narrative of white versus non-white is part of why universities are so squeamish whereas if it were any other group, they would likely have no problem drawing these lines. The student organizations defending and supporting Hamas’s actions as legitimate resistance have themselves explicitly painted it as a conflict between “white” Israelis and Jews and “people of color.”
Also, because I missed this my first reading…
My point in saying this is that addressing bigotry at the K-12 level helps EVERYONE. It helps the targeted students but it also helps those who were taught bigoted ideas by their families and those who are neither but are part of the community.
In fact, it is the opposite of victim-blaming. It is about ALL of us taking responsibility, even those who are not targets or perpetrators in a particular instance.
And speaking of victim-blaming…Jewish students have a right to stand up for themselves of they so choose. Yes, it is also a valid choice to decide the disruption to their education is not worth the trouble they might gain by standing up. But they also have the right to stand up.
The targets of bigotry have the right to try to ignore it OR to address it, as they themselves see fit…that’s exactly why I tell my kids to check in when they see a classmate targeted…so they can support them how that classmate wants to be supported.
Yes, this is an issue with movements in general. Publicly declaring yourself on a “side” or part of a group makes it that much harder to separate yourself from that even if the leadership of that group moves towards a more extreme position.
This is something my college student and I have discussed in terms of coming to peace with the idea that people you otherwise agree with and considered friends or natural allies might suddenly be endorsing or at least not objecting to positions you find to be extreme.
Many of the rallies and statements were initially framed in terms of fighting Islamophobia and anti-Arab discrimination, which is important and should not be objectionable… but then as part of this came clauses and speakers with the justification of any and all of Hamas’s actions, the antisemitic tropes, the harassment of visibly Jewish students.
The availability of alternative spaces is always relevant to the question of fear and intimidation. A person might be legally justified in shooting an attacker if the person is cornered and has a reasonable basis for fear. That same person might be jailed for manslaughter in most states if she could have simply turned and walked away. To the question of whether a campus protest on the steps of Widener library makes it impossible for some who disagree with the protest to study and learn and therefore is entitled to millions in monetary damages, the availability of alternative space is most relevant.
It’s not about whether swastika’s should be allowed on dorm room walls. It absolutely should not. Also absolutely no as to the n-word. Everyone agrees that not everything is fair game. Take the Jewish group that organized an anti-war protest outside of Old Campus at Yale. They agreed that desecrating a menorah was not fair game and rectified that action. Where is the line? It’s a lot of what Justice Potter said about porn. We all “know it when we see it”.
Stating an opinion, correctly or incorrectly, that Palestinians of the region were long suffering due to settlements, sanctions and blockade is not the same as a swastika. The actual issue is that some students are saying that it is the same. And that they can no longer learn nor study as if it were a swastika. That’s the issue. Your thoughts that a reasonable distinction can be made between critics of Israel’s right-wing policy and genocide is obvious in theory and not happening in practice.
I am making no assumptions about your victimhood. I live in a town where Italians, Irish, and Jewish people were sequentially excluded with restrictive covenants and other nonsense, so I have a first hand view of very recent victimhood of all colors. It’s the students who are claiming that sporadic protests are causing them to huddle in their dorm rooms that make me question their grit and perhaps political motivations.
Everyone has the right to stand up for themselves, but I wouldn’t tell the school that my son is hiding under the covers every day. That serves the agenda, but crosses a line. And being a social justice warrior takes its own toll and exacts its own price.
What’s most appalling about this is simply that we have all turned the public consciousness into talking about all of these amazing colleges and universities as political pawns. And it started with FIRE. Now that FIRE has been discredited, it just starts with “Universities are very political, so now they have to stay political”.
Harvard’s a group of faculty, almost exclusively at the leading edge of thought in their field, and students who - if anything can be gleaned from this website generally - trade in excellence, sometimes at a global level. Yes, if you ask an archaeologist to take a stand on Palestine, she will. But that’s really not what it’s about. But it certainly makes great press doesn’t it?
But we are talking also about classroom buildings and dormitories, for which there are not ways to simply avoid those spaces at those times. Again, my comments are not specifically in regard to Harvard and/or study spaces.
So, should posters celebrating the events of October 7 be allowed in dorm common spaces? Should it be okay that students are told that if they do not attend a dorm screening of a “documentary” about how Jews control the US media they are complicit in genocide and apartheid?
Is that about “Stating an opinion, correctly or incorrectly, that Palestinians of the region were long suffering due to settlements, sanctions and blockade?”
Again, I am not commenting specifically on the Harvard lawsuit.
I am commenting in general about the issue and specifically about my own kid’s actual experiences.
This, I agree with. (Edited to add, well, maybe not most appalling…but I do agree that this is what is happening.)
The problem on campuses is the unequal enforcement of policies, plain and simple. This specific problem starts and ends with the administration, not with the students.
While I suspect that I am on the opposite end of the political spectrum with many of my fellow posters here, I strongly agree that the era of knee jerk cancellation has been wholly detrimental to actual intellectual pursuit.
If a policy exists on a college campus, it is the responsibility of the administration to enforce it, period.