Ever since October 7th, there has been an explosion of anti-Semitism at colleges and universities that has raged out of control.

The permissive atmosphere that began with the claim of students and faculty saying that they merely wanted to “protest” Israel’s political policy quickly devolved into crowds banging on windows and trapping Jewish students in a library, professors proclaiming their “exhilaration” about the rape and murder of Israelis, physically assaulting Jewish students, and actual federal charges regarding death threats made to Jewish students at Cornell University.

Donors and alumni are rightly withdrawing funding from colleges and universities, citing academia’s failure to take a moral stand against this vitriol and racism. However, the anti-Semitism genie is way out of the bottle. College and university leadership can always find the moral fortitude to issue statements any time a rope is left in a tree, but when threats are projected on walls at the University of Pennsylvania, all the administration can muster is a lame apology and a lukewarm “this is bad” statement.

“Last night, vile, antisemitic messages were projected onto several campus buildings, including Penn Commons, Huntsman Hall, and Irvine Auditorium. Penn Police were notified and quickly responded, and a full investigation is currently underway,” said University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill.

She continued, “We will pursue this matter to the fullest extent and take swift action in accordance with our policies.”

Phrases including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Zionism is racism” were projected onto the facade of several buildings on UPenn’s campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

These anti-Semitic acts keep happening because there have been no consequences for the students. And the students are not being shy about just how bigoted and violent they could get.

I am horrified. This was @ucla today. This is indefensible.

They will start with punching piñatas and end with punching Jews. pic.twitter.com/HjfehbFhwA

— AYM Higher (@AYM_Higher_) November 9, 2023

Just imagine if a conservative student group on a college campus had put up a piñata of Barack Obama, and started beating it with cameras rolling. Good Lord, we would have had a month-long media meltdown. Keffiyeh-clad students with their faces covered, smacking a Netanyahu piñata, screaming “beat that f**king Jew“? Silence, so far, from UCLA administration. The same protesters also beat a Joe Biden piñata. So stunning, much brave.

Jewish students at MIT were prevented from going to classes, and the administration’s response was absolutely worthless.

This is the reality that MIT President wants to hide. A letter from Israeli & Jewish MIT students:

To all students at MIT,

Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that…

— Retsef Levi (@RetsefL) November 10, 2023

An excerpt from the long form tweet/post reads:

The CAA hosted a blockade that not only disregards MIT guidelines, but also obstructs Jewish students from attending classes.

Some Jewish students who saw the administration’s failure to respond to the targeted harassment of Jews on campus by the CAA came together to support each other and peacefully together stand against this threat to their safety.

Four hours after the blockade started, at 12 pm, the MIT administration passed a letter to all students, threatening their suspension if the crowds did not disperse from Lobby 7. Only the Jewish students left immediately. The CAA protesters did not cooperate. Indeed, the CAA proceeded to invite more students and non-MIT protestors to join them in calling for a violent uprising (“Intifada”) and justifying the terror attacks of Hamas on Israeli civilians.

At 5 pm, all students on campus were warned through MIT’s emergency notification system to “avoid Lobby 7” –– officially recognizing the danger present to students as a result of this violent protest. No Jewish or Israeli students were present at this point.

As of 10:30 tonight MIT has officially decided not to academically suspend CAA students who repeatedly violated the administration’s guidelines and threats. They have shown that actions against Jews at MIT do not have consequences. Additionally, in an email to DUSP students, the Department Head indicated that he would protect any DUSP students involved in violating MIT’s rules today by protesting with the CAA. Not only do Jewish students feel unsafe on campus, but now they also feel excluded from and unsafe in DUSP.

And this happened AFTER a student was told to seek “mental health support” if she was upset about her fellow students calling for genocide against Israel.

Liyam Chitayat, an MIT doctoral student and fellow at the Hertz Foundation, discussed calls for violence against Jews, a lackluster university response, and struggles in forming a Jewish student group on campus.

“Maybe they think that some sort of neutral stance is the least inflammatory,” Chitayat said of her university’s administrators, “where, in fact, anyone who acts as a bystander or is complacent with that, the blood will be on their hands.”

She recounted how at a recent large pro-Palestinian protest at MIT, attendees called for “Intifada,” which are terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, and chanted “from the river to the sea,” which refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and is a call for the erasure of Israel.

In response to these calls for violence against Jews, Chitayat reached out to the MIT Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response Office, but she says she did not get the support she was looking for.

“The institute said I can reach out to mental health support, as if the right response to physical threats and calls to violence is going to therapy,” she stated.

The Jewish left, which has been utterly stunned by the outpouring of vitriol by their so-called fellow leftists, is struggling with what to do right now. Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, who is on the left himself and taught at UCLA, cannot understand why his fellow “tolerant” leftists are willing to tolerate racism at this scale. And Greenblatt is now saying that the ADL is going to start “going after” colleges and universities on Title VI grounds if academia doesn’t shape up, as the ADL keeps hearing from students about the radical and growing anti-Semitism on college campuses.

At this point, Greenblatt should just be getting the lawyers revved up. The administrations on college and university campuses have proven themselves to be weak and feckless when it comes to protecting Jewish students. They would never be so cowardly when it comes to defending any other group. For the record, Title VI reads:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

It looks like MIT needs a lawsuit. Stanford could also be sued. And all it will take is one big lawsuit, with some massive financial penalties – again, these colleges and universities will only act when their budgets are threatened, not their Jewish students – to begin the process of rooting out anti-Semites from the faculty, and cracking down on protests that are so obviously meant to threaten and intimidate and call for the death of one specific group of people.

Let the lawfare begin.

Featured image: Harvard Hall at Harvard University, via Daderot on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain