The Connection Between Cancel Culture and Anti-Semitism at Sarah Lawrence College

The Connection Between Cancel Culture and Anti-Semitism at Sarah Lawrence College

We have been following the disturbing events at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. SLC Professor Samuel J. Abrams, a victim of cancel culture himself, connects the dots between that and the outbreak of vile antisemitism.

He writes at Minding the Campus:

Cancel Culture Enables Anti-Semitism to Spread at Sarah Lawrence

Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) fell last week after the student-led Divestment Coalition occupied the school’s main administrative building and established an encampment on campus.

The protests, supported by external groups such as National Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement’s New York City chapter, were essentially facilitated by the school, with the Dean of Students even welcoming these outside activists to campus. The administration declined to condemn their actions and hate-filled messages, and members of the encampment may never face disciplinary charges despite the disruptions and the protesters’ anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish and Zionist community members.

Protesters yelled chants supporting violence against Jews, endorsing Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization—and distributed materials glorifying figures such as Yahya Sinwar, the now deceased head of Hamas and leader of the October 7th massacre. Jewish students reported feeling unsafe due to the inflammatory rhetoric and the encampment’s presence, and Jewish students were shouted at and threatened by members of the encampment as they walked by…

While College outsiders have correctly taken note of these disgraceful behaviors and the complicity of the SLC’s leadership, it is critical to acknowledge that many students are caught in the crossfire—too intimidated, overwhelmed, frightened, or apathetic to resist the chaos. Despite this, some campuses across the nation, including the University of North Carolina and Princeton University, are witnessing students pushing back against this un-American extremism. These are bright spots, yet on most campuses, these illiberal forces remain overwhelmingly dominant and hard to combat.

Over the decades, I have seen this fear, self-censorship, and cancel culture thrive and infect many. Countless students come to me on my campus and elsewhere with the same story: they all detail how intense and challenging it has been to speak up and challenge the well-coordinated, aggressive, and vocal voices on the left. They recognize the real costs of being cast out and being labeled as anything but left-wing, which bears the weight of being culturally unacceptable by the mainstream, not just affecting their time on campus but even their employment prospects. So, they self-censor and essentially cancel themselves before others can do it to them.

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