Anti-Israel Campus Protests Are Causing Jewish Students to Self-Censor
“A closer look at the 2024 data shows that the pro-Palestinian tent encampments had a big impact”
The last two years have revealed a very dark side of the left, and Jewish students have definitely noticed it.
From Tablet Magazine:
The Silencing of Jewish Students
Will the Trump administration’s war against antisemitism on Ivy League campuses push Jewish students into the Republican camp, or will the young right’s growing skepticism of Israel leave Jewish students politically isolated?
In my new report, “Jewish Inhibition, Conservative Freedom: New Trends in Expressive Freedom on Elite American Campuses,” I discovered something startling in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s large-scale student surveys. The proportion of Jewish students at Ivy League institutions who said they self-censored their opinions several times a week jumped from 10%-13% during 2021-23 to 35% in 2024. At the same time, conservative Ivy League students experienced a big drop in self-censoring, from 55%-58% during 2021-23 to 31% in 2024. The pattern could be seen across the full range of colleges, but was most pronounced in prestigious universities whose students lean left.
A closer look at the 2024 data shows that the pro-Palestinian tent encampments had a big impact: Before they went up on April 17, 28% of Ivy League Jewish students self-censored. Afterward, 40% did. Across all institutions in the FIRE data, statistical analysis shows that the encampments increased Jewish self-censorship while reducing it for conservatives. Conservative speech has for years been the least free of any major demographic, but Jews have now converged with them. In the Ivy League, Jews now self-censor more than conservatives do.
Why would Jewish elite students feel more inhibited at precisely the time conservative students feel freer? The main reason seems to be that student-led cancel culture pivoted from focusing on race and gender to foregrounding Israel-Palestine. As recently as 2022, FIRE data shows that nearly two-thirds of student-on-student targeting revolved around perceived race or gender transgressions. By 2024, 65% focused on Israel-Palestine, with just 25% concerning race or gender.
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Comments
We should have smashed this stupidity when they were just focused on race and gender. With lots of scalps in their hands already they ae probably unstoppable unless you burn it all down or replace who school admins with people with backbone. You’d also have to fire upwards of 3/4 the faculty. Good luck with all that.
Is our side with Donald J Trump fighting anti-Semitism or with Tucker Carlson endorsing spouting and encouraging it?
The left made all the wrong decisions decades ago when it got the Al Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons now the right has to decide.