Professor Jacobson: Hatred of Western Civilization Stokes the Campus Antisemitism Crisis
“Why did American campuses erupt with expressions of hatred for Israel and Jewish students?”
Professor Jacobson has written this new column for the James G. Martin Center:
Hatred of Western Civilization Stokes the Campus Antisemitism Crisis
The unspeakable brutality and depravity of the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel led soon afterward to aggressive protests on many of our college campuses. The protests (and declarations, blog posts, marches, signs, etc.) were overwhelmingly in favor of Hamas, not the victims. Liberal feminist and women’s-rights groups were silent or dismissive of the widespread gross sexual abuse of Israeli women during the attack.
At a large rally near campus, one professor at my school (Cornell) said that the attacks were “exhilarating.” While paying lip service to protecting civilians, his visceral reaction to what was known to be a barbaric attack elicited applause and genocidal chants from the large crowd. A student at Cornell was arrested for making threats against Jewish students. Jewish students have testified in Congress to the poisonous atmosphere at Cornell and the complicity of some faculty.
Jewish students have been vilified as if they were guilty of some heinous crime. Mobs of pro-Hamas students have harassed and taunted them. At Cooper Union, a group of Jewish students had to take refuge in the library when they were harassed by an anti-Israel mob. At George Washington U., slogans like “Glory to Our Martyrs” were projected on buildings. The genocidal chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is now commonplace. At Arizona State, Jewish students needed a police escort to escape a howling mob throwing rocks. “By any means necessary” is the frequent phrase used by these student mobs to justify Hamas’s crimes against humanity.
Why did American campuses erupt with expressions of hatred for Israel and Jewish students? What could possibly motivate college students to act in such an inhumane, deplorable way?
In my view, the October 7 assault ignited an antisemitic blaze that has been decades in the making. I can trace it back to my days at Harvard Law School in the early 1980s, with the racialization of education. That is when Critical Legal Theory, later repackaged as Critical Race Theory (CRT), took hold at Harvard and quickly spread throughout American colleges and universities. At my website, CriticalRace.org, we have documented how deeply CRT, and variants like “anti-racism” and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), have captured American education.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
After hoaxes likes trolling stone magazine fake rape story about UVA, and earlier oprah winfrey amplifying the fake rape story about Duke lacross, ivy league colleges felt compelled to virtue signal by appointing women as presidents. But when confronted by students on their campuses celebrating the mass rapes by Hamas, they are strangely silent because its now about “context”. Apparently, its only “rape” if there can be privileged white males to blame?
What is most astonishing to me about the modern hatred of Western Civilization is the total lack of acknowledgement of the benefits provide the entire world. Nor does there seem to be an appreciation for the uniqueness of the Western culture that enabled these achievements. I understand that, particularly in the 19th and 1st half of the 20th century with the mad drive for colonies, that the sense of Western power corrupted leaders. But Western culture brought forth a huge development of revolutionary scientific knowledge, technologies, business practices, legal theories, abundance of foods, sanitary practices, medical practices, drugs, equipment, arts and literature. These have all greatly benefited the world and have greatly reduced the number of people in poverty.
If one hates Western Civilization, then live life without it – no refrigeration, no indoor plumbing, no packaged food, not electronics, no electricity or appliances, no machines (e.g. cars, buses, trains, bicycles), no modern buildings, no pavements, no clothing with synthetic fiber, no corrective lenses for the eyes, no use of the English or other Western languages, no printed material – just a day to day experience of grinding poverty to get food. Nothing is romantic about subsistence life.
There is no need for this nihilistic, “throw the baby with the bathwater” mind set. Indeed, Western Civilization has developed the means for orderly change.
I’m not sure but I think at least some of the advances and benefits of Western civilisation are credited to others. For instance I’ve seen it claimed that the scientific method is thanks to Islam, it was Islam that created the first university, and that the West strip mined its colonies for resources and thus stole its way to significance.
Such thinking requires either a great deal of creativity, or outright lying about history, but like they say, without double standards the Left would have none.
Without a doubt, the Arabs at a critical time in history cultivated and enhanced learning acquired particularly from the Greeks. Much of Greek learning in Western Europe came from Westerners copying some of the books in the library of Constantinople prior to its sack in 1453 and from the Arabs. But after awhile Arab learning stagnated.
It was the European innovation of having an degree-awarding secular institution that we would see as a university. This scholarly environment would eventually result in the advancement of many of the ideas of art, science, and philosophy that form the foundation for our civilization. The scientific method, in particular, was a secular development and can be traced in the evolution of concept to European scholars such as DeCartes, Bacon, and Newton.
It is unquestionable that there was much learning outside the West. But no other region produced such a stupendous advance in thought as did Western civilization. This should celebrated.
They hate western civilization and capitalism because it requires work and talent to be successful. When you have participation trophy generation people demanding success and top salaries when they are unwilling to put in the work, then obviously they are going to dislike the system as they fail. Even more disliked are those who are successful by putting in the work and having the talent.
Western civilization is under attack. It’s bad enough that Islam is our enemy, but the culpability of the professors at our universities is inexcusable. They need reform. We must get rid of DEI and CRT and reform academia and our schools.
Christopher Rufo has just uncovered numerous examples of Harvard’s Claudine Gay plagiarizing her dissertation: https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1733976372450853222?s=20
Claudine Gay is acting the part the trustees want. With affirmative action admissions disappearing, the trustees feel they need some way to show they are “anti-racist”. Ibram X. Kendi is smiling.
Prof J has described the situation and its roots very well. Western Civ, generally, is at the center of their political and social target.