The Problem in Universities Goes Beyond Antisemitism

Commencement season this year comes at a time when universities are under assault. Where that assault comes from, however, is arguable.

Many point to scrutiny and pressure from the Trump administration. Others stress that the increasingly overt antisemitism that provoked the scrutiny is what truly threatens the institutions.

Undoubtably, the disgraceful antisemitism is deeply worrisome. Antisemitism itself, however, has a longstanding place at the tables of academia. Its current form constitutes its own existential threat to a university’s essence.

Today’s antisemitism expresses itself in overt support of terrorist groups. Some deny this, claiming “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”. This is a deeply mistaken and dangerous premise.

The term terrorism isn’t simply subjective, thrown at those fighting for an unpopular cause. It has a definition, even if legally formulating has proven challenging.

Historical efforts toward that, ironically most often associated with the UN, have taken different forms, but revolve around a shared, intuitively understood premise: activity that defies not only the rules of morality, but its very possibility.
Four elements figure prominently in definitional efforts, all pointing to this concern.

The most glaring, the targeting of civilians, of course violates all laws of war. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, this has not always figured most prominently. That actually reflects another component: the belief that any tactic, without limit, is allowed in pursuit of purportedly noble causes. This defies the concept of the Rule of Law.

This is behind another, hotly debated, point: state actors cannot commit terrorism, even if they can commit war crimes. Identifiable governments can be held accountable, both through internal protocols and by international law, however imperfect. Stateless, unaccountable militants contradict all possibility of the Rule of Law.

Finally, it considers what these militants are attempting: to affect national policy through coercion. States have methods for determining policies; terrorists subvert that at gunpoint.

Advocacy for terrorism doesn’t display freedom of speech, it undermines it. The theories behind that freedom are challenged by the culture of support for terrorist groups and methods. John Stuart Mill’s conception of a marketplace for ideas, allowing the best to emerge, is thwarted by an atmosphere that intimidates expression, which likewise makes the democratic participation envisioned by Meiklejohn and others impracticable. Coercive environments inhibit the autonomy of individuals to make their own choices and maintain their own opinions.

Fittingly, terrorist sympathizers act with tactics that align with those of their heroes, even if falling short of inflicting bodily harm. Asserting that their cause justifies all behavior (“by any means necessary”); making alternative viewpoints physically impossible to maintain; advancing their own views through brute force rather than free exchange; and even the wearing of masks to escape accountability, all parallel key elements of terrorism.

Arguing for a “maximalist” interpretation of free speech, including that which becomes physical harassment and intimidation, is not even allowing for a minimalist interpretation, but destroys the concept’s foundations, rendering it meaningless. In a university, this makes a farce out of the hallowed goal of seeking truth.

I am privileged to teach at Yeshiva University, which, despite being committed to a religious orthodoxy, works to uphold its values within a framework of a pursuit for knowledge and truth, and reverence for freedom and life. This was on display at its joyous commencement ceremony, which featured Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the courageous mother of Hersh, kidnapped by Hamas and ultimately brutally murdered. Her address highlighted themes of viewpoint diversity, broadly based love and compassion, and urged the students to embrace life and human potential.

This event comes in the days between Passover and the Shavuot festival. Passover commemorates the Jews’ liberation from centuries of oppressive slavery in Egypt. At that moment, restraint and discipline were prioritized. The night they were liberated, they were commanded, “none of you shall go out from the door of your house until morning (Exodus 12:22)“. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik explained the intent: throughout history, oppressed peoples, when liberated, often turned on their tormentors, running riot and committing massacres. This cannot be the behavior of the nascent Jewish nation, soon to become defined by commandment, morality, and order.

From then on, the Jews would celebrate that moment of liberation. And yet, restraint once again; gestures are incorporated into Passover practice to acknowledge the deaths of the Egyptians who pursued them until the last moment.

The glory is in the freedom itself, not in the revolution. Even when necessary and just, all death is loss; life is precious, and morality would be constructed upon that principle.

Shavuot continues that celebration, commemorating the receiving of the Torah, a system of laws and objective morals that defined the essence of the new nation, a recognition that otherwise, there is no humanity. Universities that fail to appreciate that erase their own legacies.