The Chronicle of Higher Education expresses disregard for Jewish parents

Being both a faculty member and mother of a Jewish college student has placed me in the intersection of two very different worlds: a profession that faces existential threats and a parent community where we and our children are treated dismissively.  I perceive both groups as living increasingly in echo chambers.  It is hard for university leaders in particular to have a balanced perspective about multiple stakeholders when the Chronicle of Higher Education—the major comprehensive news source for administrators and faculty—covers issues with shocking levels of anti-Jewish bias.  Although antisemitism on college campuses is the Trump administration’s stated reason for attempting to dismantle higher education as we know it, the Chronicle barely mentions Jewish parents and when it does so it treats them with open disregard.  Effectively addressing campus antisemitism without the federal government stepping in requires leaders to have insight about how universities are seen outside their walls, which is hard when the major trade publication provides distorted coverage.

A year ago I contacted the Chronicle to discuss what I perceived as anti-Jewish bias in their reporting, and in May 2024 sent them a detailed memo with numerous examples.

First, I shared my personal experience attempting to pitch op-eds about two different topics. Below is from the memo:

The two pitches that I have made to the Chronicle for review essays related to DEI received dramatically different responses depending on which minority group they discussed.

In the first case, I was treated with warmth, curiosity, and professionalism. In October of 2022, I proposed an essay on “Dismantling university support for women in the name of equity.” I was told the staff was intrigued by the idea and they wished to know more about sources of evidence. We corresponded back and forth several times and then spoke at length by phone. Ultimately I did not write the piece…but my experience was one of positive engagement.

By contrast, this February I was treated dismissively when proposing to write about the relationship between DEI programs and antisemitism. My observation is that right-wing individuals who are already hostile to DEI programming have latched onto campus antisemitism as a hook to argue against it. Antisemitism gives these bad actors the ammunition they seek to rail about ‘woke’ universities, and this is an Achilles’ Heel for higher education. I argue that for Jewish students to feel excluded on campus pushes away a traditionally progressive-leaning group that has historically championed DEI. Rather than warmth, I received a curt response: ‘Unfortunately the essay topic outlined in your note does not meet our current needs.’ I responded with thanks to the staff for consideration and asking for any feedback regarding the gap with respect to current needs and received no response.

It was a surprise how explicit and revealing the staff was that concerns about women meet the Chronicle’s needs whereas concerns about Jewish people do not meet the Chronicle’s needs. They didn’t offer the stock phrase that they receive many proposals and cannot accept them all, but instead they said straight out they just didn’t want to hear it. Media professionals rarely state their biases out loud, and here the editorial staff provided the troubling news that they simply do not care about the topic of antisemitism and DEI programming—wow.

I also shared observations about the Chronicle’s coverage that led me to perceive anti-Jewish bias.  Notably, in a single daily briefing on May 16, 2024, there were two articles that made a striking juxtaposition.

The first defended university encampments protesting the Israel-Hamas war against the legacy media portraying them as coordinated across schools.  From my memo:

“Encampments are defended prominently and proactively: The lead content of the daily brief was the claim that encampments at various universities are strictly local, that they are not related to each other, and that national news organizations look incorrectly for commonalities and gloss over distinctions between them. It is unclear why it would be a problem even if protests across universities were coordinated, especially given that many students said they were acting in solidarity with besieged peers elsewhere. The Chronicle’s reporting was protective and supportive of the encampment movement.”

Then I argued by contrast:

Jewish parents are portrayed as conspiracy actors who stifle free speech with baseless complaints.

Later in the same daily brief there was a link to an article about how Jewish parents behave badly—they are coordinated and attempt to stifle free speech by complaining to administrators en masse. The article portrays these parents with nothing but criticism and suggests they have no valid concerns.

Below is the Chronicle’s preview of their article:

Parent activists

As they respond to student protests, college presidents have many constituents to consider: trustees, donors, students, professors, lawmakers, alumni. But that list isn’t complete without parents, at least in the view of the organizer of Mothers Against College Antisemitism.

Elizabeth Rand, a lawyer who organized the private Facebook group, is the mother of a high-school senior. Her group — which has nearly 60,000 members — has “filled administrators’ inboxes and voicemails with their concerns,” our Emma Pettit reports, asking, among other things, for colleges to take a harder line against Pro-Palestinian student demonstrations.

The group says it seeks to protect Jewish students from bigotry; critics say some of its actions target professors and seek to constrain free speech.

When Emma asked Rand about the perception among some that an outside group like hers should not have a voice in college decisions, the organizer replied: “We’re consumers. If I’m giving you $80,000 a year, you’d better behave.”

Below is my admittedly cheeky interpretation of the full article, again from the memo:

• Jewish parents who complain to universities are coordinated by a centralized source, which turns out to be nothing more than a parent with a…Facebook page. She has no resources, organization, or infrastructure—literally the extent of her coordination is a…page on Facebook. Although the word “conspiracy” isn’t explicitly used, the writer’s clear message is that Jewish people are organized and coordinate their actions.
• Jewish parents behave badly and create trouble for university administrators with a flood of baseless complaints. They stifle the free speech of faculty who voice anti-Israel views.
• Jewish students are overreacting when they object to acts like projecting “Glory to our Martyrs” on the side of a building named for Jewish donors.
• For any potentially legitimate concerns with antisemitic acts there have already been apologies, e.g., the Columbia student who said he would murder Zionists and a professor who called October 7th “exhilarating.” To mention apologies multiple times seems to suggest impatiently that there is already closure on these incidents and it is not valid to feel upset by them anymore.
• Math class is a legitimate forum for expressing anti-Israel views and it stifles free speech if parents are concerned about political discussions during math.
• Then the shocker: Over halfway through the article there is a parenthetical sentence “(There have been reported incidents of Jewish students’ dorm-room doors being graffitied or set on fire.)”—after which the article immediately switches back to saying Jewish parents are a problem for universities because they trample free speech by weaponizing antisemitism. The word “reported” even implies subtly that these incidents might not have happened.

Recently a DEI facilitator at WashU made the fascinating point that Jews are the only minority group that people both kick up and kick down: if one puts down Jews it is okay because they really control the world behind the scenes through powerful organizations and it is heroic to expose their conspiracies. Last week the Chronicle followed exactly that playbook to the letter by writing that overzealous Jewish parents are coordinated in their efforts to cause trouble for universities. If your dorm-room door is set on fire that doesn’t fit our narrative, so here’s a parenthetical reference casting doubt that it even took place.

It is perplexing to me how many people claim that the main problem with antisemitism is how it gets weaponized without entertaining the possibility that it actually exists. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s reporting appears to focus primarily on weaponization and uses a classic antisemitic trope to portray Jews while doing so….[Y]our organization contributes to this problem facing our industry.

A senior editor responded and we had a good Zoom call.  He respectfully disagreed with my characterization, but based on our conversation invited me to pitch an editorial called “Elise Stefanik is cynical but she has a point.”  The idea would be that campuses have been dismissive of the December 2023 Congressional hearings without considering the substance of antisemitism on college campuses.  He suggested this was like handing Stefanik a loaded gun, that dismissing her without reflecting on her point makes her attack more potent, and that higher education needs to acknowledge its own failing and reform itself.

So back in May of 2024 I thought we had a breakthrough!

In the intervening year the op-ed was on my backburner, and jumped to the front when the Trump administration attacked my alma mater Harvard.  I sent the same editor an op-ed pitch about how Jewish parents have become radicalized by lack of regard for their children’s health and safety, and this mob is universities’ own creation.  After multiple follow-ups he told me they would pass on publishing it and offered no feedback.  It felt like gaslighting to be guided towards something that they would consider and then told simply no.

To test my perception that the Chronicle of Higher Education’s coverage is an echo chamber where Jewish parents are mentioned unsympathetically if mentioned at all, I collected data: a search on their website for the keywords “Jewish parents” revealed only 21 hits—fairly shocking for a stakeholder group at the center of the current crisis.

• After October 7th, it took over four months for the Chronicle to use the words “Jewish parents.” In February 2024, “A campus where everyone is just like you” was about identity-based marketing to lure Jewish students.  They referred to “the Israel-Hamas conflict”—a dismissive description of the terrorist attack—and portrayed Jewish students as enemies of free speech who cannot handle political disagreement, hence the appeal of identity-based marketing.  The Chronicle also took the time to cast doubt on campus antisemitism and condemn Israel.  They pointed out that Jewish students receive preferential treatment because colleges do not similarly market to Muslim students.
• Next, in April 2024 two sentences in a daily newsletter summarized a noteworthy poll: “Antisemitism concerns shape college choices: In a survey, almost two-thirds of Jewish parents, 64 percent, said their children stopped considering a college because of increasing antisemitism after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, according to Hillel International. Even more, 96 percent, said they are worried about campus antisemitism.” The Chronicle provided a link to Hillel’s website but no further reporting about the findings.
• Articles included incidental mentions, a billionaire donor, and even some gallows humor: self-congratulatory descriptions of antisemitism being an issue of the past (December 2000 and May 2006), a December 2011 book review where the writer says “[e]ven among those raised with a serious Jewish education, as I was, there seems to be an almost willful ignorance toward other faiths” (back in Brooklyn, we called writers like this “self-hating Jews”), and articles about individuals whose parents were Jewish one of whom was Jesus Christ.
• There have been no hits on the Chronicle’s website for keywords “Jewish parents” during the 10 months since July 2024.

It is troubling to stand by and watch biased information put my profession in harm’s way.  University administrators and faculty must find more balanced news sources than the Chronicle of Higher Education or risk being woefully unprepared with the perspectives needed to face our existential crisis.  I still hold out hope the Chronicle can reconsider its anti-Jewish bias.

An earlier version of this blog appears in my Substack “What Did You Expect?”