Mothers Against College Antisemitism is a monster that universities created

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7^th being both a faculty member and mother of a Jewish college student has placed me in the intersection of two very different worlds.  This sliver of space is disquieting, in a field that faces existential threats and a parent community that witnesses students treated dismissively.  As the Trump administration attacks universities’ most basic operations and autonomy under the guise of addressing antisemitism, I have come to the conclusion that anyone working on a college campus who thinks we are blameless is part of the problem.

Many groups outside university walls believe that we brought this situation on ourselves, and yet during this crisis I witness little soul-searching.  One such outside group is Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MACA), which has over 60,000 members[i].  Although it is merely a Facebook page, MACA has made itself a dominant voice regarding college antisemitism, notably through its frequent letter-writing campaigns to university staff, faculty, and public officials.  This group formed shortly after the terrorist attacks when many campuses reacted to the rape, murder, and kidnapping of Jewish civilians with indifference, victim-blaming, and even celebration.  As such, we gave birth to MACA.  I have seen with my own eyes MACA evolve from a bipartisan advocacy group into a vengeful political echo chamber that supports President Donald Trump’s war on universities and cheers the destruction of higher education as we know it.

If we look at MACA’s vitriol while seeing ourselves as innocent victims, then we miss the point and feed the beast.  Jewish students have bona fide concerns that have not been taken seriously enough—to the extent that MACA is a monster it grew from our failures.  Universities need to do the real work of safeguarding Jewish students, so we don’t offer pretext for the federal government to make unreasonable demands.

If you don’t believe there is contempt towards Jewish people on campus, then my only question is “what stops you from believing it?”  A group of students has experienced harassment, vandalism, destruction of property, exclusion, and even physical barriers from accessing their education. Rather than being protected they are disparaged as entitled, whiny oppressors who want to stifle free speech about politics. For universities to face our existential crisis we need to understand the legitimate concerns of people who have lost faith in us.  At a time when schools implement trigger warnings and sensitivity training, Jewish students have been admonished that hate speech is free speech.  We need to understand rather than dismiss over 17,000 people who liked the Babylon Bee meme “Columbia student leaves lecture on microaggressions to attend ‘Kill the Jews’ rally.”   This parody resonated because Jewish students don’t get trigger warnings—instead they watched university presidents testify before Congress that calls for their genocide may be acceptable depending on the context.  Their concerns are filibustered with long theoretical debates about the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism when they just want to eat bagels on Sunday morning in peace.

As flawed as it is, MACA fills an information void left by mainstream news outlets, and assuming good intentions I believe many colleagues do not truly understand the magnitude of hostility against Jewish students.  These students have faced protests in front of religious buildings, swastikas painted on doors, stolen mezuzahs, political litmus tests to remain in clubs, exclusion from so-called safe spaces because they are considered too privileged, and even the inability to access parts of campus without denouncing the existence of a nation halfway around the world where they do not vote and may never even have visited.  They would have to pay for breaking a dorm window while protesters occupy buildings and destroy property with impunity.  It is unfortunately not uncommon for them to encounter professors who instruct them that the only Jewish state is a “project” or “belief” rather than a nation.  These same professors might begin meetings with self-adulatory land acknowledgments that absolve Americans without irony for living on stolen land ourselves.  Students see global events of similar death toll to that in Gaza attract no attention on campus, in a trend labeled “no Jews, no news.”

The gaslighting is phenomenal as students’ systematic experiences are denied and they are accused of constraining free political expression or even staging grievous acts themselves, and—consistent with harmful stereotypes about Jewish people in general—using power and money behind the scenes to get what they want.  Jewish students are told that it is off limits to discuss hate speech at protests because not every single protester used hate speech—as if there is a certain threshold required to have a valid concern—and so events are often labeled as strictly “peaceful” when reasonable people disagree.  Political issues involving Jewish people seem to follow different rules, where discussions of Israeli politicians are incendiary in a way that discussions of Democratics and Republicans are not.  To round out the gaslighting, university administrators and faculty have even praised those shouting hate speech for their passionate convictions and have congratulated themselves for giving these young people voice as thought partners, finding common ground with them, and bringing their resolutions to trustees.  At my alma mater Harvard, administrators even offered burritos to the protesters who occupied their offices[ii].  How much “voice” would a university give to white supremacist or anti-transgender protesters?  As a community we call attention to the pain caused by microaggressions and misgendering, despite those being free speech too.[iii]  American Jews have historically been at the forefront of civil rights movements, and many who are heartbroken that the “I” in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) apparently does not apply to them conclude that DEI is a cynical enterprise after being excluding when needing it most.

After all this, universities should not be surprised that some mothers would like to have a word with us.

MACA is a natural consequence of failing Jewish students.  And what began as a bipartisan space for mutual support now fully backs the Trump administration’s war on universities.  Before we dismiss over 60,000 people, we should understand that they also have a point and not simply misplaced rage.  Trump has responded to this point by validating it and promising to address it at all costs by crippling universities.  Many parents are willing to accept collateral damage on local economies, life-saving research, and student financial aid because they have watched universities spend close to two years without addressing the contempt directed toward their children.  Many believe there is no other solution than razing schools to the ground and starting over.

Straddling the university and Jewish parent worlds, I have felt responsibility to engage with MACA and help translate.  Working increasingly in vain to prevent the group from being an echo chamber, I comment regularly, always identifying myself as “professor here” and occasionally posting links.  Discussions became increasingly toxic during the 2024 election onwards, and moderate voices are now silenced.  Highly respectful comments that express concerns with the Trump administration are regularly deleted and their authors are harassed or banned from the group.  My own recent attempts to post links that balance the dominant perspective have been declined as out of scope, redundant, or insufficiently prioritizing an end to college antisemitism.

From my perspective universities failed Jewish students and now face an angry mob that wants to burn it all down.  As monstrous as MACA is, we created that monster.  So what can we do about it now?

First, university administrators should understand that MACA is not a legitimate bipartisan student advocacy organization, as it portrays itself, and interact with them only through the government affairs office as with any other political group.  Student and academic affairs should be buffered from direct contact.

Second, universities need urgently to address antisemitism on our campuses without waiting to be bullied by a presidential administration or Facebook page.  This is our last chance to neutralize the pretext for far-reaching attacks.  The solution is simple: Apply the same existing disciplinary policies and community norms to the treatment of Jewish students as any other students.  Antisemitism training should take place during orientation alongside other community programming.  All destruction and defacing of property should be investigated thoroughly and sanctioned using existing disciplinary codes and where appropriate financial penalties.  This includes property destroyed with animus, such as Jewish students’ religious artefacts or spraypainted walls, and incidental destruction such as campus buildings occupied during protests.  Breaking a window during a protest should be billed the same way as for a dorm room.  Clear guidelines should be developed and communicated for hate speech that apply equally to speech against any group, including political groups.  To ensure justice and prevent resentment for any perceived special treatment, administrators should be careful not to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction by disciplining students without the same due process as for any other infraction, for example taking sexual assault investigations as a model.

Universities cannot address our existential crisis until we solve the legitimate problems facing Jewish students and stop offering talking points to those who want to destroy us.  Beyond political considerations, Jewish students have been treated with disregard and deserve better.

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Note that an earlier version of this essay was rejected by the opinion section of Chronicle of Higher Education, with the only feedback that the topic did not meet their needs.  I wrote about this experience in another essay called “The Chronicle of Higher Education is a hypocritical echo chamber that expresses disregard for Jewish parents.”

A version of this essay appeared in my Substack, “What Did You Expect?” https://hillaryangerelfenbein.substack.com/

[i] For more about MACA and its origins, see the Chronicle’s profile: https://www.chronicle.com/article/we-dont-need-to-be-genteel?sra=true.

[ii] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/11/18/university-hall-occupation-ends/.

[iii] I would like to commend my own chancellor Andrew Martin at Washington University for taking the courageous stand of calling out hate speech in just this way, even while committing to defend free speech.