December 6, 2023 - 8:30pm
Antisemitism on campus is intimately tied to the loss of viewpoint diversity which has occurred in the US, Britain and other parts of the Anglosphere since the mid-1960s.
Congressional hearings on antisemitism at elite US universities revealed that the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania were unwilling to answer in the affirmative to the question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?” As it happens, I agree with the Washington Post’s Jason Willick, who remarked that these leaders were correct, under First Amendment jurisprudence, to reject the idea that talk of genocide should automatically lead to punishment. The problem, of course, is that these colleges are extremely hypocritical, clamping down on any speech which might offend totemic minorities (BIPOC, LGBTQ) while clinging to a First Amendment justification for tolerating antisemitism.
Financier and Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman has admitted he was unaware of the scale of the radical takeover at top universities until antisemitic incidents made headlines. In an open letter, he drew attention to Harvard’s persistent bottom-ranking performance on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s free speech rankings — a stark contrast to their free speech rationale for permitting students to disrupt and intimidate Jewish students on campus. He traces this to a generalised hostility to whiteness and sympathy for nonwhite — especially black and indigenous — voices. Issues such as Israel-Palestine have come to be processed through this absolutist racial lens in which Jews are assigned the role of white oppressor and Palestinians that of colonised people of colour.
Ackman quoted a series of faculty members, who describe Harvard as “loud” and “hate-filled” where “protests appear to be encouraged, but where faculty and students can’t share points of view that are inconsistent with the accepted narrative on campus.”
This gets to the nub of the issue. The loss of viewpoint diversity among the professoriate has opened the door to radicalism. The scale of the shift is breathtaking. To take one example from social psychology: Jonathan Haidt and his collaborators showed a major shift from a 2:1 Left-to-Right ratio among staff in 1960 to around a 14:1 ratio in the 2010s. At Harvard, academic political donations data shows that around 99% goes to the Democrats, with only 1% to the Republicans.
As Cass Sunstein, among others, has pointed out using data on judicial panels, when viewpoint diversity is lost, there are no counterarguments to the dominant position and decisions are more extreme. People lose touch with reality as like-minded individuals confirm their biases. People push each other toward extremes while rewards flow to those who exemplify the progressive values of the community rather than those who synthesise competing positions.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI work in a British university, and it is a truly horrible place. Toxic, intolerant, and riddled with fear and self-censorship. Britain had something good with its HE sector, now it doesn’t. Within a decade, twenty years at most, British universities will be nothing more than illiberal ‘progressivist’ propaganda machines and indoctrination centres, especially in the humanities. They were allowed, it has to be said, to lay their rock-solid ‘woke’ foundations under thirteen years of Conservative government. Amazing, isn’t it. With so many people ‘re-educated’ by 2040, this really is the longest suicide note in history for Conservatism! So astonishing will be the transformation that Caroline Nokes, if she’s still around, will be considered the party’s most extreme, far-right reactionary. Frightening!
‘Evil prospers while good men stand by and do nothing’ Except it wasn’t a case of doing nothing but actively enabling and nurturing it that has ensured its undisturbed gestation.
W. B Yeats said it best – “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Craven cowardice is exhibited by the author of this essay, wherein he refuses to condemn baying mobs that chase people through schoolhalls shouting “From the River to the Sea…” and “Death to Jews”.
The First Amendment does not protect those who make overt threats to another’s life.
Either does a university’s code of conduct
All one has to ask these frauds is whether the same standard would apply if a group of white students held images of ropes on tree limbs, while shouting white supremacist slogans.
I have no trouble believing that if you got a line of Vice-Chancellors from our leading universities before a House Select Committee, you’d get very similar answers. It’s sad what you say about university nowadays. I was an undergraduate from 2010-2013 and university was a liberating experience where I could meet young adults around my age with similar interests, but free of our parents. Debate was heavily encouraged, and if someone’s point offended you (unless it was clearly out of line), that was your problem. Oh how times change.
John – yes, I agree. Uni was ok back in 2010. Unfortunately, a lot (indeed, a hell of a lot) has changed since then, and much for the worse. This change has taken place mainly in the past 3-4 years, symbolised by two events that are indicative of the malaise that has descended on the sector: the hounding of Kathleen Stock out of her job at Sussex; and the necessity for the government to appoint an official ‘free speech tsar’. These two things say a lot about UK HE.
This is not the time frame in which the rot is supposed to have set in. Your view from the inside seems different from the view from the outside.
Either the rot was there and you were unable to see it, it was so prevalent. Or things are not so bad as commenters from the outside (including myself) think.
I was at University in the early 80s. Most of the academic staff were sneering lefties who did not disguise their contempt for right wing views or those that held them. They were also all pro-Palestinian
No surprise. The Long March Through the Institutions began in the early 70s.
Some of what I saw was very reminiscent of the History Man
Late 1960s with new universities and introdution of progressive education in comprehensives. In 1965 Labour passed the act to introduce comprehensives and in 1967 create new universities.
I have been in senior level administrative positions in elite higher for 20 years. These changes have been happening for a long time, gradually at first, but highly accelerated after about 2015. I would say that things are actually WORSE than commentators from the outside think. The extent of the extreme “progressive” echo chamber on many campuses cannot be overstated. Faculty, students and staff alike are forced to conform in many ways, large and small. I hope organizations like FIRE and Heterodox Academy have success in their efforts to pull the pendulum back to the middle, but I fear that may not be possible anymore. I mourn for the institutions that once were the pride of the country, but now are too often only a source of shame.
Which suggests things may not be as bad as portrayed. The shift to the left of staff views had already largely happened by then, and critics were already pointing out left wing dominance of the universities.
If one is professional, one can hold one’s own views while still seeking to open the minds of others. Let’s hope that spirit is still alive and strong behind all the dogmatic noise.
As a fellow university traveller I don’t believe they will survive barring perhaps Russell Group/top STEM institutions.
Edutech, focus on skills over knowledge, value for money, geopolitics and much else is reducing their relevence.
Yes. The university came into being as a means for scholars to meet and collaborate. Now we have the Internet for that. If universities didn’t exist we wouldn’t invent them.
Strong stuff, but you might well have a point.
I am also half inclined to think that all secondary education could possibly also fall into the category of If they didn’t exist we wouldn’t invent them.
Not certain, but I think there’s a revealing debate to be had.
The university is now a means for preventing scholars from meeting and collaborating.
I remember my first brush with ‘political correctness gone mad’ at a British university when I was forced to substitute the word ‘blackboard’ for the word ‘chalkboard’ in an essay I wrote, because the word ‘black’ was deemed racist. At the time it was just one professor and I wrote her off as being outlandish and insane. I never thought her way of thinking would ever enter the mainstream. This was way back in the 1990s.
*I was forced to substitute the word ‘Blackboard’ for the word ‘chalkboard’ in an essay I wrote, because the word ‘Black’ was deemed racist.
I fear that this toxic, intolerant, and irrational culture and mindset are being replicated all over the place. I recently visited my daughter in Dublin, and her campus (University College Dublin) is a staging ground for illiberal and one-sided “activism”. Examples: posters depicting Israelis in particular and Jews in general as criminals complete with Swastikas; pro-Palestinian protests glorifying Hamas atrocities (I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears; general contempt for Western civilisation whilst proclaiming the supposed virtues of socialism. The crowd’s composition was interesting, because it consisted of clearly conservative Moslems (bearded men, veiled women), self-proclaimed alphabet-soup people in miniskirts and with purple hair (the kind who would be physically assaulted in the Gaza Strip), and some normal students. The majority of the protesting crowd consisted of societal fringe groups, but they were loud and highly visible. This confirms the Spiral of Silence Theory which states that the majority is silent, because the loud minority makes the majority believe that their viewpoints are prevalent and resistance is futile.
By contrast, there was one young man wearing a suit outside Trinity College who had the courage to hand out flyers against the dangers of socialism. He was affiliated with a traditional Roman Catholic group. The verbal insults hurled by some passersby did not seem to affect him, but I felt compelled to walk up to him and to express my admiration and gratitude for his quiet opposition to this destructive maelstrom we’re facing. His face lit up, and he wished me a good day.
In summary, yes, the situation is bleak, but there are little specks of light and hope. Perhaps all we can do is to protect ourselves and our families, and watch the revolution eat its children? It wouldn’t be the first time, and history has a way of repeating itself…
On the bright side, more and more businesses are no longer requiring degrees for mngt positions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2023/10/07/why-more-business-leaders-are-saying-ditch-the-4-year-degree/?sh=1ac3c3a62940
I resigned from my position as a male full-time senior lecturer in a UK university in 2017. By then the Woking Class was running the establishment and had infiltrated every level of management and academic delivery. We were criticised, even reprimanded if we failed incompetent students; and increasingly we were being directed as to which required themes to incorporate in our lectures, seminars and assessments (e.g. racisim, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc., etc. ad nauseam.). The institution had moved from teaching students how to learn to telling them what to learn.
A bilious feminism prevailed amongst the predominantly female academic and managerial staff who felt free to indulge openly in disparaging men (“men can only concentrate on one thing at a time”, “male management suffers from a lack of compassion”, “white patriarchy oppresses women”, etc.) but who reacted instantly to any perceived sexist statements or sentiments by their largely emasculated male colleagues. Frequent workshops on campus were prominently advertised on anti-men subjects like ‘toxic masculinity, ‘the patriarchy’, ‘white [male] supremacism’, institutional misogyny’, etc.
I was lucky enough to be able to resign and go at a time of my choosing. How glad I am to have left when I did. Up till then I had largely enjoyed academic independence, freedom of speech and was respected by my students, who valued the classroom discipline, sense of fun and academic rigour with which I infused my teaching. The very few ‘complaints’ I ever had levelled against me were by sub-standard students whom I’d failed in assignments (deservedly), and whose complaints were never once upheld.
When I resigned I still had several years before reaching retirement age. After I’d handed in my notice not once did the substantially female faculty management ask why I was leaving or seek to persuade me to remain, and thereby retain a committed and capable member of academic staff. I was replaced by a young, inexperienced female.
Agree with you completely Graham. I too work at a British university and am desperately looking for a way out. Viewpoint diversity is nowhere to be seen. Nor are the basics of critical thinking, open minded discussion, examination of the facts, intellectual rigour etc.
Today most universities are structurally racist. Actively dismissing applicants for lecturing posts who are white and seeking to ‘close the attainment gap’ for non-white students by formally asking us to explain our marking if any black student gets a low grade…
It started for me when the government of this country decided that 50% of the population should attend uni, rather than providing every child with a really decent primary and secondary education. With the closing of tech colleges and the proliferation of ‘universities’, standards flew out of the window- of students, courses, lecturers, everything. There are simply not that many people in this country able to be critical academic lecturers.
I have lectured cheek by jowel with senior academics who spend their careers fetishising and infantilising black and brown students – rather than paying them the respect of holding them to the same standards as others – and busily organising conferences to defund the police etc; ‘feminists’ championing trans rights and devoting their careers to destigmatising sex work for students rather than lifting a finger to help and protect women and girls in the real world.
It’s been Orwellian for about a decade, but the murder of George Floyd turbocharged the direction of national travel. Now it seems even that wasn’t what we’ve all been told it was. https://youtu.be/0ffv4IUxkDU?si=W99IrrCE-hCAbsmf
Superbly concise summary by Kaufmann. Unlike some of the more modish writers for Unherd who are drawn to the stateside model of verbiage as a demonstration of intellectual depth, he performs that hard but valuable craft of sifting and evaluating ideas so they can be expressed in clear simple terms. Quoting Jonathan Haidt, another beautiful prose stylist is also a great sign.
I was particularly impressed by his elegant formulation of a concept I often struggle to describe as well as I want. That important concept is contained in his phrase “those who synthesise competing positions” that most fundamental civilisation creating skill.
Being encouraged to argue competing positions in (for instance) an essay at many of our higher academic institutions is something that’s fallen by the wayside as dogma replaces debate and indoctrination replaces the critical faculty of thinking.
This is partly due to the influence of the internet, where the proliferation of views can seem to be overwhelming and easily available, but doesn’t exonerate those in senior academic positions who grew up prior to its ubiquity.
This lack of understanding the arguments of the other side has led to groupthink. John F. Kennedy, despite his personal failings, was a brilliant thinker who understood human nature, and did everything in his power to avoid groupthink. Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he brought in outside experts, withheld his own opinions so as not to influence others, and encouraged vigilant and critical questioning. He also introduced the concept of after-action reviews.
Instead of following Kennedy’s lead, we have now devolved to the status quo of groupthink which the psychologist Irving Janis defined as such:
Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.Unquestioned belief in the superior morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Closed-mindedness
Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, immoral, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid, racist, sexist, colonialist (insert any of the adjectives currently favoured by the woke).
Pressures toward uniformity and conformity
Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.Illusions of unanimity among group members; silence is seen as agreement.Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”Mindguards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
*edited to adjust format
Allow me to add that it’s not just a lack of understanding, but an unwillingness or perhaps even inability to engage with opposing viewpoints. University campuses (or campi for those of us who studied Latin) are filled with people who regard being subjected to differing opinions as personal attacks; they are “triggered” at the drop of a hat, and react aggressively when their ideology is challenged. They have never outgrown the mental state of toddlers who smash the other child’s sandcastle to bits or throw a tantrum when faced with boundaries and resistance.
Your posts here on this theme are very good and, clearly, you have a real involvement with the issue. Let me say, first of all, that I agree with you. The question is what to do about it.
In my opinion, the accumulated minds of UnHerders could help. The main thing is to come up with suggestions, however stupid.
As a devil’s advocate, I have read recently several book reviews about politics and the reviewers say the same kind of thing – that the Right should stop whingeing about Free Speech whenever someone talks of things they don’t agree with. They might say something like, “If that’s what the students think, it’s OK” How do we get past this without complaints about the right of Free Speech?
I recently read an article about the events in Palestine where the author ignored rights and wrongs and just talked about the messages to the media – as if each side did things ONLY for the media images and for nothing else. I was out of my depth in this study. But I do pick up a possible answer, which is to fight like with like. Really we need media experts to channel the thoughts of UnHerders into bites which gain media approval.
I am just a boring old person and I read a lot but I see the problem from my own system of ethics, not what younger see.
“…as if each side did things ONLY for the media images and for nothing else.”
That is the issue in a nutshell. It’s all about counting eyeballs online, but many don’t understand this and believe the garbage.
Nails the issue, I think. I also agree that the First Amendment would guarantee the right to expression of obnoxious views without punishment: the point, however, is that it does not, and should not guarantee freedom from criticism and debate. That’s where the rot is well underway: some people believe their views to be above criticism and not needing debate.
Today I have been following along with the Congressional hearings. It is an eyeopener how evasive the university presidents were to the questions. (I am Canadian.)
The question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?” is direct and one would think requires, as asked, a yes or no answer.
My question is, what comes next? How will the universities be able to get back to a bit of equilibrium of differing ideas, of political ideas, without this outrage from the “left?” Surely it needs to happen.
The questions about what comes next, and what we can do to bring back a sense of balance are indeed vital. I am not sure anymore that there is anything we can do to reverse this situation. I have reconciled myself to the thought that the best thing I can do is to protect myself and my family, and watch the inherent and inevitable crash from the sidelines. What will happen then? I am not sure, but history has taught me that humanity often slips from one extreme to another.
Apparently Jews donate large amounts of money to these places, if they, all of them, withdrew these funds, the universities would be less financially comfortable and may have to start offering a more balanced and interesting education ‘experience’ to attract students.
Not just Jews need to stop donating. Anyone who disagrees with the radical, unquestioned groupthink needs to stop donating.
But then they won’t get invited to the swanky cocktail parties and dinners.
Then my question is, why wasn’t he? And the same question to many, many others who were in a position to try to prevent this takeover? Ignorance, wilful blindness, too busy trying to be “on the right side of history”?
A quarter of a century ago I left academia after completing my PhD and a brief career as a researcher and tutor in the UK. On the day I walked away I could have told you that this was where academia were going to end up sooner or later.
Back then the forces of endarkenment were only starting to gather their forces and establish their playbook: bans on certain newspapers, political correct speech, relativist excusing of favoured minorities etc etc. It was inevitable that if left unchecked they would rise to prominence and come to dominate the commanding heights of academia.
We are now in the position where a university will with performative piety allow the cancelling as hateful of speakers who say that women don’t have penises while protecting the free speech of people who call for Jews to be killed.
People with power, money and influence who could have taken a meaningful stand a generation ago but chose not to share responsibility for this.
I saw the same thing in the mid eighties. It’s not new.
Bottom line – they’ve cracked up. They’ve got bats in their belfry. No sense beating around the bush here. Go to Harvard to twist your morals into a pretzel. Misgendering someone? You’re a Nazi! Kill the Jews? Free speech! 😉 😉 😉
Just to be clear, a university’s code of conduct does not have to be aligned with the First Amendment. That’s how they have crushed free speech over the years. That these schools now use the first amendment to justify antisemitism is shocking, but not surprising.
As others have said, this article provides an excellent summary of some of the consequences of restricted viewpoints in higher education.
I regard much of what is now happening on campus, and in the culture generally, as an intertribal war for pole position on the victim hierarchy with all its attendant advantages.
For a long time women were academia’s preferred victims and received all the perks of that status (especially middle class women). Then the trans folks came along and beat them at their own game, so now women are crying foul.
Jews were also a preferred victim group, at least in the US, but the focus now seems to be shifting from them to the Palestinians and perhaps other “people of color” from the Middle East.
In a world where globalization, technology, and an obsession with industry-destroying environmental policies is destroying real opportunity for most people, establishing victim status, with all its perks, is more important than ever.
If you’re referring to academia here, interestingly enough, this is not true. In fact the opposite happened especially at Harvard in early 20th century. It’s documented that Harvard had a secret quota system to limit the number of Jews enrolling at Harvard despite their higher academic achievements. Harvard later came up with the concept of overall achievement (including social contributions) to be able to exclude Jews from admission which was copied by other universities. This is actually more reminiscent of how Asian Americans are being excluded these days from universities.
Jews have been told by their former minority allies that they are ‘white’, and therefore part of the Oppressor class.
As a result, attacks on ‘whiteness’ are now being taken more seriously than when only Europeans were being targeted.
Yes, hopefully more people are becoming aware of how rabidly racist Critical Race Theory’s actually is and moves will be taken to prevent it being taught at universities, except for when it is referred to as an example of how fascism can can cloak itself in the guise of a civil rights movement.
Interesting how all these dysfunctional American universities seem to be led by women…
About a decade ago my brother (who never married, and has no children), my wife and I (who are childless) decided we could no longer countenance donating our estates to our alma maters.
Even back then we were seeing a distressing intolerance to opinions and ideas which did not conform to our universities’ overarching dogma. Speaker harassment, professors punishing students academically who failed to toe the accepted line, and outright self-righteous attacks on those who raises objections all became acceptable behavior, and–somehow–right.
Consequently, we mutually agreed that we could not countenance our names associated with scholarships that served to facilitate the indoctrination of young minds to a philosophy so antithetical to scholarly pursuits.
Add to this the infantilizing of university students, reduction of required core courses to obtain a degree, and pervasive grade inflation meant today’s university degree gifts its recipients with little more than a piece of heavy bond paper with a bright, shiny seal.
While there may still be some level of rigorous academic instruction in certain colleges of science and technology, we are seeing an increasing demand for science and engineering faculty to sign off on administrative requirements certifying their adherence to that which is woke as well as the promise to promote same through their classrooms and laboratories.
These malefactors masquerading as distinguished exemplars of higher education will not get our money. Sadly, so many of these schools have endowments and tax advantages that our choice will have a minimal impact on the current destructive course.
The three of us are presently reviewing various non-profit organizations that are promote free speech in all its messy, inconvenient, and–sometimes–obnoxious glory.
Our efforts and money may prove inconsequential in the long run.
But, one has to start somewhere.
Well done, you’re doing the right thing and more of us need to emulate you.
Quite remarkably a large number of people, fighting the good fight against “moral relativism”, seem to have missed this. And it really predates Gen Z. It’s not the loss of morality we are seeing; it’s the (attempted) creation of a new morality.
And adherence to this morality appears to have replaced sophisticated tastes as the key marker of social distinction.
From the linked article:
Comment removed
Yes. The bigger question is what we can do to reverse this development? Is there anything we can do? Perhaps the best we can do is step aside, take cover, and watch the system and its adherents crash and burn?
And indeed, this does mean that the universities begin to fill a role more like that of a church.
It is often said that the loss of Christianity leaves a god shaped hole that needs to be filled. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it leaves a church shaped hole.
Yes, I find the “god-shaped hole” idea to be a skewed interpretation. For most, it’s not the absence of a deity that’s the problem; it’s also much less about searching for deep meaning, and more about missing religion’s simplistic playbook. There’s a yearning for clear-cut guidelines, promising easy success within the horde, and offering neat and tidy (however oversimplified) solutions to life’s messy complexities.
If Jews are not an ethnic minority but white supremacists, you can kid yourself that it’s not racist to hate Jews.
This process was started by feminists back in the late1970s. If there was something said that offended their amour-propre, there would begin a low humming, which proceeded to a crescendo of full-blown shreiking or screaming, until the offender slunk away. This was amplified for any of their comrades who had offended in some way.
The last time academics had backbone were when they had served in combat in WW2. Most retired by the mid 1980s.
Geoffrey Elton – Wikipedia– Sergeant infantry Italy
M. R. D. Foot – Wikipedia Officer SAS.
In the US, its time to end their tax exempt status and make them front their own student loans.
The Obama era really marked the inflection point for this. Political discourse gave way to absolutist ideology. Activism meant behaving in any manner as long as you feel strongly enough. The Trump years is when the horses left the barn. Open public harassment of government officials became normalized and this behavior that was encouraged by elected officails like Schumer and Waters. The Overton window of civility has shifted dramatically..
This is news?