Officials meet over schools’ discourse
Seek to tackle uptick in antisemitism
Officials from the Biden administration on Monday met with Jewish leaders to discuss steps the federal government is taking to counter the “alarming uptick in instances of antisemitism at schools and college campuses,” according to a White House summary of the meeting.
The gathering was attended by second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, other senior Biden administration officials, and about a dozen Jewish leaders. It came amid what advocates and Jewish students say is a sharp increase in antisemitic acts and an increasingly hostile atmosphere, including on local campuses.
The Globe reported Sunday that Harvard president Claudine Gay convened a group of advisers to combat antisemitism at the university, weeks after she faced criticism for not immediately rebuking a student letter that placed all blame for the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and after some Jewish students said that antiJewish bigotry at Harvard is on the rise.
In interviews with the Globe, three participants from the Monday meeting, which took place at the US Department of Education, said that the conversation was productive, and an opportunity to give voice to the collective fear that Jewish students and their families have experienced since the Hamas attack.
Jewish students across the nation have felt isolated and threatened by antisemitic speech and actions in the days and weeks following the Hamas attacks, which was celebrated by some student groups.
At Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., campus police on Sunday were stationed outside the university’s Center for Jewish Living following online posts threatening violence against Jewish students, according to a message to the campus community from Cornell president Martha Pollack.
“We will not tolerate antisemitism at Cornell,” Pollack said. “This incident
highlights the need to combat the forces that are dividing us and driving us toward hate.”
Rising antisemitism across the country was “already an urgent problem, and now it’s an emergency,” said Julie Fishman Rayman, senior director of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee, who attended the Monday gathering.
A spokesperson for the AntiDefamation League said that the organization has recorded a total of 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23, compared with preliminary reports of 64 during the same period last year. At least 10 of the incidents reported this year included physical assaults and about 54 of the incidents occurred on college campuses this month, according to the ADL.
Emhoff, who is Jewish and has been leading a national strategy to counter antisemitism, and Cardona “unequivocally denounced antisemitism and all other forms of hate,” at the Monday meeting according to the White House summary. They also reaffirmed the administration’s support for Israel and the right of Israel to defend itself against terrorism.
The Jewish leaders called on the Biden administration to issue “guidance and also enforcement action, with sufficient resources to back it up,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law.
“I was impressed with the administration’s conduct of the meeting,” Marcus said. “There was ample opportunity for Jewish communal leaders to speak.”
Since Oct. 7, the Department
‘We will not tolerate antisemitism at Cornell. This incident highlights the need to combat the forces that are dividing us and driving us toward hate.’ MARTHA POLLACK president of Cornell University
of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has worked to improve the process for discrimination complaints under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to specifically state that certain forms of antisemitism and Islamophobia are prohibited, a White House official said. The action aims to help students who experience discrimination seek redress for it. The Education Department aims to finish the update later this week.
The Department of Education has also been hosting roundtables with Jewish students at universities across the country to learn more about antisemitism on campuses.
At Harvard, more than 30 Harvard student groups signed a controversial letter that blamed Israel for “all unfolding violence” hours after the Hamas attack and included no criticism of the terrorism or civilian killings.
Later, the Harvard Hillel president wrote to the Harvard Corporation, which oversees the school, and said that in recent weeks he and other Jewish students had “watched in horror as our classmates celebrated the most brutal attack against Jews since the Holocaust and started spreading antisemitic hate speech — largely online, and sometimes in person.”
“As we grapple with this resurgence of bigotry, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Gay said in a speech Friday at Harvard Hillel, a Jewish campus group. “For years, this university has done too little to confront its continuing presence. No longer,” she continued, according to a copy of the remarks Harvard posted online.