Colleges and universities that accept federal funds have to abide by the law against discrimination and harassment. We have seen a great deal of such discrimination and harassment lately, with Jewish students subjected to ugly, sometimes violent treatment at the hands of virulently antisemitic faculty, administrators, and students. Complaints against the institutions have been filed, but the Education Department is sitting on its hands.
In today’s Martin Center article, T. J. Harker explains why this is the case.
He begins:
American Jews are in a strange predicament. On the one hand, following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, radical-left partisans learned that antisemitism is an increasingly important and effective part of their racialist ideology. On the other hand, holdovers from the Left’s tolerant but distant past are not prepared to abandon the party that has abandoned them. They still feel the need to distract the public from the inroads made by antisemitism deep within the Democratic party. They do this by pointing to the so-called epidemic of white supremacy on the right — an epidemic that is more imagined than real.
Okay, but the law is clear. The trouble is that in our administrative state, the law is often whatever the top officials want it to be. They frequently bend or ignore it to suit their political needs. And for many Democrats, it’s more important to keep peace with their antisemitic bloc than to support Jews.
Harker hits the nail squarely on the head when he writes:
The fundamental question is whether the Left will be able (or even seriously attempt) to restore universal tolerance as its defining ethos. If prior to the Hamas attack the answer was “maybe,” now the answer is almost certainly “no.” And since the nation’s universities are dominated by leftist partisans, it is not surprising that much of this struggle has been unfolding on campuses around the country.
Harker points to the complaint against UNC, where Jewish students have been harassed and intimidated, but the Education Department is doing nothing.
In the nasty DEI ideology that now has the Democrats in thrall, Jews are increasingly regarded as “white” and hence “oppressors” who deserve whatever they get.
Read the whole thing.