Campus antisemitism may herald the end of leftist control over American universities

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

A decades-long campaign has given the extreme Left virtual control over academia. As little as 20 years ago, I did not believe that our institutions of higher learning have turned into “left-wing madhouses,” but I was mistaken.

Our educational system has become an incubator for the Left. All they want to do is brainwash students to parrot the Left’s dogmatic ideology. Today’s college student is not being taught how to think. “The assumption seems to be,” said former Yale University President Benno Schmidt, “that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.”

I am appalled not only by what is happening on campuses but by what it portends for the future. “Give me four years to teach the children,” said Lenin, “and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

A friend of mine who is a professor at a well-known college confessed to me that he has to keep his mouth shut because so few of his colleagues share his conservative outlook. One study identified Democrats to Republicans in journalism departments of 1,500 universities at 20-1, and a whopping 33.5-1 in history departments.

“The next time you hear a college president boasting how diverse his college is,” said Walter E. Williams, former economics professor at George Mason University, “ask him how many Republican faculty members there are in his journalism, psychology, English, and sociology departments.”

When did this happen? How did campuses become fueling stations for the Left? The big ideological shift probably began as a by-product of anti-Vietnam War hysteria. According to Ben Shapiro in Bullies, college administrators decided in the 1960s that it was “easier to appease rampaging leftist students than to deal with them. They came to an agreement with the wildebeasts: stop taking over the buildings and locking the doors, and we’ll start teaching you about how America sucks.”

Gradually that translated into leftist thinking becoming a prerequisite for getting hired. Many campuses require new faculty members to sign a “diversity statement” where they are forced to pledge allegiance to the college’s leftist agenda. “What diversity oaths seek,” said Professor Williams, “is to maintain political conformity among the faculty indoctrinating our impressionable, intellectually immature young people. The last thing that diversity hustlers want is diversity in ideas.”

One of the destructive leftist agendas on campus has been bashing whites. Minority students are encouraged to demand power solely based on race, gender, or sexual orientation, said Scott Greer in No Campus for White Men. It’s a species of identity politics, he says, “that’s increasingly bordering on outright hatred for white people.”

On the heels of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th, anti-white hatred morphed into Jew-hatred. “After October 7, the public was shocked at what they saw and heard on America’s campuses,” wrote Victor Davis Hanson in Townhall. “Americans knew previously they were intolerant, leftwing, and increasingly non-meritocratic. But immediately after October 7, the sheer student delight on news of the mass murdering of Israeli victims seemed akin more to 1930s Germany than contemporary America.”

“Jewish students are currently stereotyped as ‘white’ and ‘privileged,’” said Hanson, “and thus considered as fair game on campus. At the same time, the number of foreign students from the oil-rich Middle East has soared on campuses.” Hanson points out that former victims—black, latino, feminist, queer, trans, etc.—have received “a blank check to engage in racist and antisemitic behavior without consequences.”

Last week, an amazing event took place in a congressional hearing. The presidents of elite Harvard, MIT, and UPenn were cross-examined by Rep. Elise Stefanik, who severely criticized them for enabling harassment of Jewish students on their respective campuses. Stefanik asked each of them whether calls for the genocide of Jews would result in students being punished under their schools’ codes of conduct.

All three presidents attempted to avoid the question and refused to unequivocally condemn calls for the genocide of Jews. None of them said that calling for killing Jews would necessarily violate their school’s code of conduct. They said it would depend on “context”—the circumstances and conduct of offending students.

“That’s your testimony today?” Stefanik said. “Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer yes for.”

Stefanik asked the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, if the Ivy League school would punish students or applicants who say, “from the river to the sea” or “intifada.” “Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard’s code of conduct or is it allowed at Harvard?” Gay’s response was, “It is at odds with the value of Harvard, but … we embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.” The same response has not been forthcoming when black or trans students have been harassed, but obviously a different standard is being applied when Jews are harassed. You can be fired as a professor or be expelled as a student if you misgender a trans person or question DEI philosophy, but calling for killing Jews is acceptable.

The three presidents have come under fire from business leaders, donors and politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a post on X that he was “ashamed” to hear the testimony, calling it “one of the most despicable moments in the history of US academia.” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called Penn President Liz Magill’s statements “unacceptable” and “shameful.” One billionaire donor rescinded a $100 million gift to UPenn. Magill subsequently resigned her position as president.

The outbreak of antisemitism on campus, together with the offensive remarks of the three college presidents, may become the catalyst for establishing ideological diversity in academia. As donors rethink their gift-giving, the universities will be forced to clean up their act. There is nothing like the power of the purse. The government also is responding—14 colleges are now under investigation by the Department of Education.

Universities are coming under attack for requiring new hires to sign a diversity statement. Texas Tech University, for example, is reviewing its hiring processes after a conservative education advocacy group criticized how the university’s biology department rates job candidates’ commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The public’s perception of elite colleges has undergone a dramatic change. “At the present rate,” said Mark Victor Hanson, “a Stanford law degree, a Harvard political science major, or a Yale social science BA will soon scare off employers and the general public at large. These certificates will signify not proof of humility, knowledge, and decency, but rather undeserved self-importance, vacuousness, and fanaticism—and all to be avoided rather than courted.”

Many parents are questioning the advisability of sending their kids to a four-year college. Universities with a severe anti-conservative bent will be under increasing pressure to diversify their faculties if they expect to survive public condemnation. They are in danger of disappearing altogether. It may not be such a bad idea.

Ed Brodow is a conservative political commentator and author of ten books, including No. 1 Amazon Best Seller THE WAR ON WHITES: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport. His website is www.edbrodowpolitics.com.

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