Editor’s Note: ADL (Anti-Defamation League) rounds up developments in the anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses across North America. Here is the report for Friday, May 10. [Press Release]
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Penn. University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Police cleared the encampment at the center of campus this morning and made several arrests. After the area was cleared, other protesters — including some Penn faculty members — tried to obstruct the street around Locust Walk (the pedestrian center of the Ivy League school). The area where the encampment had been is being fenced off as Penn facilities employees clean up the mess.
As they were being arrested, protesters chanted: “PPD, KKK, IOF they’re all the same.” (PPD is the Penn Police, IOF is a slur for the IDF, and the KKK needs no explanation). This move comes after an expansion of the encampment Wednesday evening to the east side of College Green. And on Thursday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a non-voting member of Penn’s Board of Trustees, said that it was “past time” for Penn to clear the encampment.
MIT: At 4 AM this morning, police ordered anti-Israel protesters at an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to leave. Over the next hour, they entered the encampment, dismantling it and arresting 10 protesters. The encampment is now cleared. “The individuals present in the encampment at the time were given four separate warnings, in person, that they should depart or face arrest,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said.
Occidental and Pomona. Yesterday, ADL and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed Title VI complaints against California’s Occidental College and Pomona College. Since 10/7, Jewish and Israeli students on both campuses have been verbally harassed and physically surrounded, followed, threatened and intimidated by protestors. They have been shouted at, told to “go back to the gas chambers,” and called “kike,” “f**king Jew,” “f**king Zionist” and “murderer.”
Many Jewish students confine themselves to their dorm rooms, stay away from certain campus activities and classes, and have to avoid certain dining halls or cafés, common areas on campus, and campus events to avoid antisemitic harassment. Several have transferred to other schools due to persistent antisemitism.
Read the full complaint. The details on intimidation, physical violence, and harassment are horrifying — and, unfortunately, not news to these colleges’ administrations who know what is going on but are not taking action.
Need legal help? Use the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL), run by ADL, Hillel, the Brandeis Center, and Gibson Dunn.
Columbia. Yesterday, we told you about the brave Columbia students who wrote an open letter to their peers outlining their experiences on campus and what they believe their fellow students need to know. Thankfully, it has received wide attention in the media and throughout the community. Let’s show these students that they are not alone!
TAKE ACTION: Tell Columbia’s Jewish students that they are not alone, you support them and are proud.
The New School. In what may be a first, the faculty of Manhattan’s New School set up an anti-Israel encampment inside a campus building. The protesters are calling on the school to divest from arms manufacturers and boycott Israel.
Towson. The student government at Towson University in Maryland passed a BDS resolution on Tuesday that was introduced by the Towson chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. Towson Hillel responded by calling the move deeply biased and antisemitic, noting that these resolutions are “about normalizing antisemitism and introducing hate and division on campus.”
Denver. Students at the University of Denver set up an encampment outside the university’s administrative building on Carnegie Green. Their demands are nearly identical to those made by other anti-Israel protesters at other universities.
Big 10. ADL’s Midwest Director David Goldenberg toured campuses throughout the region this past week. Watch his video recap of what he saw in: Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
Campus Champions
Professors Teach. More than 500 current and emeritus faculty members from the University of California system sent a letter to the Board of Regents today urging them to hold faculty and departments accountable, saying “If you cannot curb the unchecked political activism of faculty and departments, the University of California will soon become Judenrein — wholly inhospitable and unsafe for its Jewish members — and the University will lose a vital part of its research and teaching staff and its student body, and suffer irreparable reputational and financial harm.”
A Better Man. In the months since the Israel-Hamas war began, Sen. John Fetterman has become one of the Democratic Party’s most outspoken supporters of Israel. Read this USA Today interview with him: “It must be incredibly unnerving and terrifying if you are a Jewish student, when you have all of these things. I’m sure they might feel like — why don’t they have our back?”
WashU. Washington University in St. Louis is preparing for commencement on May 13 by requiring tickets and asking students to unzip their graduation robes before entrance. WashU also will be withholding a degree from at least one student arrested at an anti-Israel protest as her case makes its way through the courts. In other news, WashU students voted down a BDS resolution this week.
Madam Secretary. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not mince words on “Morning Joe” yesterday when talking about anti-Israel protesters on campus: “I have had many conversations with a lot of young people over the last many months. They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country.”
Am Yisrael Chai
White Colonizer? Student anti-Israel protesters often claim that Israelis are “white colonizers.” This video debunks that slur. The caption reads, “Israel has 9.2 million citizens. Over two-thirds are people of color. Among them are Sephardic, Ethiopian, Ashkenazi, Mizrachi and more!”
Learning In Harmony. On too many campuses, students are not learning and talking with each other. To see how it can be different, CBS News went to the Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem, one of only six schools in Israel that has both Arab and Jewish students.
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Preceding provided by the Anti-Defamation League.