Will universities now hesitate to admit or hire Palestinians?
23 May 2024
Venerable law firm Sullivan & Cromwell announced that it will be “extremely vigilant” in vetting future potential hires in relation to events at protests across the country: “Creating, or participating in, a climate of harassment, intimidation and discrimination is unacceptable. We have been very open about our firm’s views on these matters.”
“There’s been no price to pay for being an antisemite,” Mark Rowan, Apollo Global Management CEO said. “These kids who are marching [at anti-Israel demonstrations], they don’t think about it because there’s been no price to pay. But if you come to Apollo, I would not hire you if you were anti-Black. I wouldn’t hire if you were anti-gay. I wouldn’t hire you if you were anti-anything. Why would I hire an antisemite?” Source
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.”
This essay describes a possible consequence of the recent Palestinian campus protests - that many universities will hesitate to admit Palestinians as students or hire Palestinians as faculty or other staff, for these reasons:
These protests severely disrupted and damaged many universities:
Due to these protests, many university Presidents were forced to resign or testify to a hostile Congress.
Due to these protests, many graduations were canceled or severely disrupted. The students affected, their families and the surrounding communities are likely to remember these disruptions for some time and hold it against the Palestinian protesters.
These protests were due to world events beyond the control of the Universities which makes the protests even more troubling.
Some protesters attempted to take over University facilities (Penn State, UC Berkeley), and allegedly committed criminal behavior, such as accosting students at Harvard, assaulting police officers at the University of Michigan, threatening violence at DePaul University or causing property damage at the University of Washington.
Some of the protester rhetoric was blatantly antisemitic, such as calls to disband Jewish organizations (Hillel and Chabad), chants promoting violence against Israel or Jews (“globalize the intifada”), chanting “Go back to Poland” and other widespread antisemitic activity at Columbia University and elsewhere.
As a result, Universities may try to prevent future damage to their institutions, students, faculty, donors and neighboring communities by limiting the admission and hiring of Palestinian students and faculty.
After 17 years, Professor Barbara J. Risman says she no longer recognizes the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a distinguished professor of sociology and co-chaired the university-wide committee on faculty equity. She told the Times of Israel, “The demonstrations are never framed as being about ending the war, helping Gazans, or rebuilding Gaza; all things I could get behind. Instead, everything is framed as an assault on the right of Jews to have a homeland. That’s when I personally feel attacked. That’s when it becomes antisemitic.” She discussed how two departments of the University issued statements after 10/7 in solidarity with Hamas, and how she received confidential praise from other faculty for speaking out against antisemitism on the campus.
In summary, these protests are likely to damage the Palestinians who participated and others who did not, as university administrators may assume any Palestinian may act similarly in the future and hesitate to admit or hire them.
See And Now, a Real-World Lesson for Student Activists, posted subsequently.
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