CASEY RYAN: University Professors Have An Antisemitism Problem

Universities have notoriously had a problem with antisemitism since the terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel with student-led protests and vandalism plaguing campuses. While this should be concerning, the root of the problem is often ignored.

Beneath the boisterous students deriding Israel and, in some cases, threatening their Jewish peers are faculty members who use their positions of authority and expertise to promote antisemitic sentiments to their students and beyond. This problem cannot be overlooked any longer.

In one of the worst instances of faculty promoting antisemitism at an institution of higher learning, a significant number of professors at the University of California, Berkeley joined together to officially condemn Israel.

Less than two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel and killed 1,200 civilians, more than 170 UC Berkeley faculty signed onto a “Statement of Solidarity with Palestinians.” The faculty claimed in this letter that they stood “in solidarity with our fellow educators in occupied Palestine.”

University staff accused Israel of “systematic genocide” and “apartheid” in the letter. Signatories included professors in numerous departments, such as history, ethnic studies, English, sociology, and African American studies.

In at least one history curriculum that Defending Education exposed through a public records request at UC Berkeley, a professor taught students the so-called importance of “Decolonizing Palestine” with the idea that Israel is stolen territory.

The fact that professors are allowed to brazenly use their positions to promote sinister ideology like this is unacceptable and should be investigated by the Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon, but unfortunately, California is not alone. The same is happening throughout the country.