Last week, the United States Civil Rights Commission (USCCR) hosted public comment sessions on Antisemitism on America’s College and University Campuses.
As was described in presentations by LIF Founder and Director William A. Jacobson and me, Jews on campus are experiencing abuse, in large part, due to the conduct of academic institutions. In particular, intersectionality ideology dominates campus culture in and out of the classroom.
After decades of academia being steeped in intersectionality — viewing issues through a group-identity-based, simplistic, good/bad lens — Jews have been shoved into an “oppressor” role. This assignment of Jewish “privilege” was made possible following years of Israel’s existence being labelled with upside-down and hyperbolic intersectional language, such as “imperialist outpost for the United States,” “a genocide,” “an apartheid state,” “racist,” “oppressor.”
In response to this environment, Jewish students at Columbia University planned to share their experiences with USCCR. In anticipation of the students’ presentations, Columbia University faculty and staff, who are part of “CU Stands Up,” responded with an editorial piece appearing to deny that there was “antisemitism” at Columbia and complaining about the establishment of a $21 million EEOC fund to settle civil rights claims made by students, faculty and staff, including two janitors who were allegedly held hostage by protesters on campus.
This writing was accompanied by a cartoon that perfectly embodies the ideology of intersectionality.
The cartoon depicts a figure wrapped in an Israeli flag receiving a $21 million check. It thereby conflates individual Jewish students, and others, who were alleged to have experienced religious-based harassment (regardless of any, or no, connection to Israel) with the State of Israel.
Despite being on the receiving end of abuse, the students are visually depicted as the smiling oppressor state reviled by those who think the “power” is with Zionism.
The happy, Israeli flag-clad figure receiving money is described as “cashed out” and is juxtaposed with a sad, keffiyeh-wearing, “Free Palestine” protester in ICE custody. He is described as “kicked out.”
In classic intersectionalist fashion, the victim and perpetrator are inverted. The abused students and staff are presented as a privileged state showered in money while the Hamas-supported bullies who seek a Jew-free land “from the river to the sea,” disrupted classes, curtailed freedom of movement, took over a building allegedly holding custodians hostage, engaged in vandalism, threatened and intimidated students and faculty, and engaged in violence are the vulnerable, oppressed victims.
The faculty and staff of CU Stands Up demonstrated their worldview is intersectionality, and they are proud to declare it, appearing to be entirely unbothered by the hate this ideology engenders on Jewish members of the Columbia University community and the harm it causes on campus.
Amanda Stulman is a Senior Researcher and Attorney at the Legal Insurrection Foundation
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