“Ahead of the Pack.” “Better than Most.” “Corrections Needed.” “Deficient Approach.” “Failing.”
These are the five evaluative categories that the Anti-Defamation League assigned to 85 American universities measuring campus antisemitism. According to their Campus Antisemitism Report Card and its recent update issued in mid-June, we, the Jewish students of America, attend colleges who cannot pass the anti-antisemitism test nearly 40% of the time.
The ADL now believes that University of California, Los Angeles, from which I graduated in June, is a “failing” university. Incoming freshmen at UCLA and elsewhere reading this report should know that the ADL’s cursory grading system tells a very misleading story about the state of antisemitism on college campuses.
In its report card, the ADL chooses (among other factors) to view thriving Jewish life as defined through access to pro-Israel programming, while ignoring violence from law enforcement and pro-Israel counterprotesters and the voices of Jewish students.
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One of the report’s required criteria for Jewish life on campus is that the school provides “ pro-Israel-related programming ,” labeling it an indicator that a university serves Jewish students adequately. However, while certain Jewish students might want programming that only talks about Israel positively, others might want programming that doesn’t mention Israel at all, or programming that is explicitly anti-Zionist. Even if one disagrees with these students, they too are a part of the Jewish community on campus, and all of our safety as Jews is equally important. The ADL could have graded schools based on the broad spectrum of their programming related to Israel as an indicator that it is a welcome environment for all Jews. But they didn’t.
Incidentally, the ADL offers no definition for what “pro-Israel-related programming” entails. Does this mean Israel advocacy, or does it also include groups like J Street U that are willing to criticize Israel?
However broad the definition, the existence of pro-Israel-related programming is not a fair measure of Jewish welfare on campuses. Sometimes, pro-Israel programming can be an unpleasant experience for Jewish students. In an effort to understand multiple perspectives, I attended many pro-Israel events at UCLA. At these events, I have been insulted, shouted at and filmed without consent, such as at an event for International Women’s Day, when I asked why the speaker rightfully condemned those who denied sexual violence on Oct. 7, but characterized U.N. reports of sexual violence against Palestinians as distracting and less than credible. Neither pro-Palestine nor pro-Israel students and protesters have a monopoly on bad behavior.
Perhaps the most disturbing element of the ADL’s scorecard is its enthusiasm for police intervention on campus. The ADL “ commended ” the deployment of law enforcement on campuses for “their appropriate handling” of pro-Palestinian encampments, specifically for “rapidly clearing” them and arresting student protesters.
In doing so, police often used heavy force — on April 30 at UCLA for example, they deployed tear gas and fired rubber bullets at students. Two of my Jewish friends were forcefully shoved to the concrete, zip-tied and arrested. Other students were hospitalized as a result of police violence.
According to real-time documentation from UCLA Radio , when student protesters tried to erect a third encampment on June 10, police shot pepper bullets and swung batons at them. In one case, they pushed a student so hard down the stairs of Dodd Hall that she hit her head and back on the ground. Even though the student began vomiting and could not hold up her head, officers still tried to arrest her.
The ADL’s report says that “the encampment was only disbanded [at UCLA] after a series of violent clashes” and details “high tensions between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters.” The “violent clashes” of April 30 that the ADL is referring to happened when a mob of pro-Israel protesters descended upon the encampment, threw fireworks at protesters, and beat them with metal rods. A Palestinian friend of mine who was sprayed with bear mace told me the attack was “genuinely the scariest moment of my life … they actually wanted to kill us.”
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The language of the ADL’s report conveniently omits the agency of pro-Israel protesters in the violence on April 30. It also ignores the ADL’s own role in stoking the “high tensions” at UCLA — on April 28, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt gave an impassioned speech at a pro-Israel rally held mere steps away from the encampment. What is most disturbing, however, is the ADL’s association of police violence with Jewish safety on campus.
Perhaps the disconnect between student experiences and the ADL’s assessment is not surprising, given the ADL consulted only 160 students at 97 campuses when constructing their evaluative criteria — a sample that the ADL themselves concedes is “non-representative,” though they do not specify how these students were selected. It is not clear how many or even who the student leaders consulted in the actual evaluation were, nor how much weight their perspective was ultimately given.
It seems like part of a larger pattern of outsiders off-campus claiming to have the answers to the problems of students, staff and faculty of a university, while speaking over us in the process.
At many universities described as “failing,” Jewish life is in reality rich and thriving. Left off the page for UCLA are the many Shabbat afternoons I and other students have spent with one of our professors, the highly subsidized camping trip to Joshua Tree that I went on with Chai on Life (UCLA’s Jewish outdoors group), and the warm generosity of UCLA’s Jewish co-op, which housed me for more than two weeks for free when my apartment flooded. These experiences of joy and community are also what it means to be Jewish in college. None of them are captured by the ADL’s grades, because most of us were not asked.
If prospective Jewish students and their parents really want to know if a university will be right for them or what their experiences might be like once they arrive, they should talk to actual Jewish students, including those with perspectives other than their own. And if they want to know about campus politics around Israel-Palestine, they should also speak to Palestinian students and pro-Palestine student organizers, as well as Israeli students and pro-Israel groups. It might not be as short, simple and satisfying as a single letter grade, but then again, neither is the learning and growth that a college education provides.
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