Antisemitism: A Pressing Issue in Our Schools.

September marks the return of the back-to-school season. With it comes the departure of summer weather, family vacations, bustling neighborhoods, and easy commuting on New York City’s streets. As parents figure out childcare, sync schedules, and kids catch up on summer readings or upcoming assignments, it is a time of new beginnings for most.

The trauma of last semester is often overlooked by many; as kids progress through the education system, they are the ones who must navigate this dilemma. In an article published in the New York Times titled ‘PTSD Has Surged Among College Students it states that “The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among college students rose to 7.5 percent in 2022, more than double the rate five years earlier,” speaking to how dreadful the situation at hand is.

In a CNN report published by Matt Egan et al. on February 29, 2024, several Jewish students spoke at a roundtable hosted by the House Education and Workforce Committee. This same committee has been investigating several colleges’ handling of antisemitism over the past few months, given the ongoing public debate and protest nationally.

The article notes “that students from Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other schools described hearing violent chants on campus and complained administrators are not doing enough to fight antisemitism.” It further added that Talia Khan, a second-year graduate student at MIT, stated, “In the past five months, I have become traumatized,” capturing the Jewish student experience on campus.

Just before the end of the 2024 Spring Semester, College campuses across New York City made headlines nationally. For several weeks, images of students from institutions such as Columbia, NYU, City College, and others engaging in protests disrupting classes, graduations, and other college activities sent our city into turmoil. An article by Sahalie Donaldson, published in City and State New York on May 2nd, 2024, states, “More than two-thirds of protesters arrested at Columbia and City College released with summonses.” The article further said, “Most protesters have been released with summonses, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged 46 Columbia protesters with trespassing and 22 City College protesters with burglary”. This fails to capture what transpired, but the videos are online if you wish to see them.

As students vandalized, trespassed, protested, and formed encampments on campuses across the city, the New York City Police Department and college officials sought to find amicable means of ensuring calm and safety. These protests, which were not isolated incidents of antisemitism, have been plaguing college campuses over the few months following the October 7^th, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. However, the issue of Antisemitism on college campuses has been one that has been plaguing institutions for decades.

“Dozens of American campuses every year experience at least some manifestation of this ugly problem, which is now undoubtedly national in scope, Saxe et al. (2015) state.” The authors explored the issues and incidents of antisemitism at Columbia, the University of California, and San Francisco State University. They noted that these incidents and problems are not limited to just a few universities. The authors supported this claim by citing the 2005 report published by the ADL, which stated that at least 100 antisemitic incidents were reported in that calendar year.

The ADL also published another study in 2023 that captured campus climate before and after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, noting that “73% of Jewish college students and 44 percent of non-Jewish students have witnessed or experienced antisemitism since the start of the 2023-2024 school year.”

During these protests, I was presenting my capstone at Baruch College. Coincidentally, my research was centered on the issue at hand. My capstone, titled An Antisemitism Academia Crisis: Communication Failure on Three Ivy League College Campuses, sought to delve into the interactions between Antisemitism, the First Amendment, and Academic Freedoms on college campuses. It looks closely at why Antisemitism has become a crisis on campuses such as Harvard, MIT & UPenn. I examined these institutions’ communication, or lack thereof, during the crisis. The aim was to establish the importance of crisis communication, particularly in a geopolitical climate. The study also highlighted how crisis communication failures have contributed to the escalation of the crisis.

Despite the riots, student demands, and tension witnessed during these protests, colleges have arguably failed to address antisemitism on their respective campuses. These protests were a call to action to address a systematic issue affecting our educational institutions. No report has been published; our corrective action to address the problem has been made known to address the issue and root cause.

The Intercept, in a recent article written by Jonah Valdez, ‘Columbia Welcomes Students Back to Campus with Arrests,’ reported that two students, one of whom is an activist with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, were arrested in front of the campus during a peaceful protest the university’s investment. The activist group has been advocating for the university to divest from companies that allegedly contribute to human rights violations in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Now that classes are back in session, have we addressed the antisemitism issues that plagued us last semester?

Will these protests happen again?  Are our students still experiencing the trauma?

Are institutions taking adequate steps to address systematic antisemitic policies?

Are our crisis communication and employee communication addressing these issues?

 

Antisemitism Goes Back to School, and Classes are back in session.