Anti-Semitic Vandalism On The Rise On Campus

Incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism on college campuses are on the rise:

On a Monday during Hanukkah, someone took eight Hebrew texts down from the shelves of Indiana University’s Wells Library, put the books in eight different bathrooms, threw them in toilets and urinated on them.

The next day, two rocks were thrown into Jewish buildings on Indiana’s campus.

The same week, a large menorah at the University of Florida was uprooted and vandalized — the night after people heckled the Hillel center, yelling, “F__k the Jews.”

These events appear be part of a larger trend: The Anti-Defamation League has received reports of at least 260 anti-Semitic incidents on campuses over the past three years.

We are all familiar with how Jewish students are challenged on issues relating to Israel. A number of different factors take this across the line from debate to vandalism

[former staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Kenneth] Marcus attributes the increase in anti-Semitic incidents like these to a number of factors, including the state’s left-leaning tendencies, larger Arab and Muslim population and campuses more tolerant of extremist ideologies.

The result is that on some of these campuses, Jewish students live in fear--afraid to wear anything that would identify their religious affiliation.

The fact that things have eroded this far is the direct responsibility of the Universities administrators themselves, who often take the easy way out and excuse their lenient attitude and inaction on the need to respect 'free speech':

At UC-Irvine, the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism concluded that the university administration did not act strongly enough in condemning instances of anti-Semitic rhetoric. Furthermore, the report criticized prominent national organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel, for failing to hold the “University and its leadership accountable for its failure to support an environment conducive to all students.”

According to Susan Tuchman, such failings are not limited to the Irvine campus.

”You often see college administrators either remain silent in response to anti-Semitism,” Tuchmann said. “Many administrators say that we know that this speech is hateful, hurtful, and offensive, but there’s free speech and therefore we can’t intervene.”

The problem appears to be that free speech is defined to allow anything when applied to Jews, but defined to allow nothing when applied to Muslims.

One might expect centers of learning to be able to apply legal and moral principles properly and serve as models for their students.

One would be wrong.

Technorati Tag: anti-Semitism.