Chuck Schumer and the Politics of Campus Antisemitism

Ok, I'm going a little off the reservation now. Strap in.

Want to get rid of Antisemitism on campus within 24 months? Schools like Harvarrrrd. Should stop admitting spoiled, woke, progressive little shits (sorry I meant dilettantes) and provide those slots to kids who are complete douchebags. Folks who come to campus (not students) looking for trouble should be immediately shown the door or arrested if they break the law.

As for the faculty. Think and say what you wish. Restrict someone's ability to peacefully speak their mind (within their first amendment rights) and you get your ass booted out (tenure or not).

Sound extreme? Probably. It will work fast.

Chuck Schumer and the Politics of Campus Antisemitism

‘Keep heads down,’ one of his staffers advised the president of Columbia. How did that work out?

By Jason L. Riley, WSJ

March 18, 2025 5:17 pm ET

Security concerns forced Chuck Schumer to postpone a promotional tour for his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” The Senate minority leader’s fellow Democrats are upset because he voted with Republicans to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.

Mr. Schumer reasoned that a government shutdown would hurt his party, which already has a record-low favorability rating of just 27%, according to a recent NBC News poll. Progressive elites would rather fight lost causes than face the reality of life in the minority. Mr. Schumer seems to understand that his own party’s catering to that base is why Donald Trump was re-elected and Republicans control the House and Senate.

Democrats might do better to put down their placards and turn their attention to the subject of Mr. Schumer’s book. Growing antisemitism in the U.S., particularly on college campuses since Oct. 7, hasn’t received the pushback it warrants. Instead, the left-wing intelligentsia that controls the academy has largely indulged the continued harassment of Jewish students.

Some prominent university presidents have been forced out, but the atmosphere on campus when students returned to school in the fall remained hostile to Jews and supporters of Israel. Why would the atmosphere have changed? Protesters who broke the law came away largely unscathed. Arrests were made, but charges were dropped. Suspensions were issued and later reversed. Task forces at Harvard and Stanford issued reports that amounted to exercises in politically correct equivocation. Predictably, both antisemitism and Islamophobia were deemed matters of great concern, as if pro-Israel students had been occupying buildings, calling for genocide and physically threatening Muslim students.

Even Mr. Schumer, wary of upsetting his flank and depressing turnout in a presidential election year, sent mixed messages about the protests. “Smashing windows with hammers and taking over university buildings is not free speech,” he said on the Senate floor last April. “It is lawlessness. And those who did it should promptly face the consequences that are not merely a slap on the wrist.” At the same time, his office reportedly was advising university presidents to ride out the protests because the disruptions were damaging Republicans. According to text messages cited in a House Education and Workforce Committee report issued by Republicans last year, a Schumer staffer told Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who later resigned, that “the best strategy is to keep heads down.”

The Democrats still don’t have a coherent strategy, as evidenced by their reaction to the arrest this month of the political activist Mahmoud Khalil. The Trump administration accuses Mr. Khalil of supporting Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, and wants to revoke his green card. The left wants to make him a martyr.

Immigrants don’t have the same rights as U.S. citizens. The law says that an alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity” is “inadmissible.” Mr. Khalil belongs to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an organization that has championed Hamas and says it is “fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Mr. Khalil deserves his day in court, but the political instincts of his defenders are telling. They would have us believe that the likes of Mr. Khalil at an elite institution, and the subsequent intimidation of Jewish students, isn’t the problem. Rather, the Trump administration’s decision to do something about it is. But the reality is that Mr. Trump is acting in the tradition of previous presidents of both parties who stepped in when local officials declined to protect the rights of minorities.

When Democratic Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas refused to stop racist mobs from attacking black children who were trying to attend Little Rock High School in 1957, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in the National Guard to enforce the law and protect those students. Six years later, when Democratic Gov. George Wallace refused to desegregate the University of Alabama, Democratic President John F. Kennedy sent in federal troops and the governor was forced to capitulate. Schools are legally obligated to protect the civil rights of all students. Jews are no less deserving of federal intervention than blacks were under Eisenhower and Kennedy.

The woke left never tires of highlighting slights against blacks and other favored minority groups. The relative blindness of progressives to antisemitism, however, especially when it emanates from nonwhites, undermines their moral credibility. Discrimination based on race or religion is wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated, regardless of who is on the receiving end. A previous generation of liberal activists understood this, which is one reason the civil-rights movement was so effective. America has never been as culturally diverse as it is today, and a common morality has never been more important.