The Review: Is campus violence — and antisemitism — surging?

On whether we're seeing an escalation from rhetoric to deed. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. College campuses have been tense places these last few years. But they have not, for the most part, been sites of political violence. There have been isolated incidents, though: Student protesters [assaulted]( a faculty member at Middlebury in 2017, and in 2016 an assistant professor at the University of Missouri [shoved]( a student reporter and called for “some muscle over here.” In recent weeks, both students and campus officials have become concerned that violence and threats of violence, largely related to protests over the Israel-Hamas war, could be on the rise. Pro-Israel students in particular seem to have been targeted. At Columbia, someone [beat]( with a stick an Israeli student who was posting pictures of Israeli hostages on campus, breaking his finger. At Tulane, as the former Chronicle reporter Jack Stripling [reports]( in The Washington Post, a handful of protesters beat a Jewish student, breaking his nose, in a dispute over an attempted burning of an Israeli flag. (The perpetrator of the first incident does not appear to have been a student; it’s unclear whether the perpetrators of the second were.) At Cornell, a computer-science student [announced]( his plans to “stab” and “slit [the] throat” of any “pig male jew” he saw on campus, and to “rape” and “throw off a cliff” any “pig female jew.” He further threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.” He is now in police custody. There have also been threats against pro-Palestinian speakers. At the University of Pennsylvania, The Daily Pennsylvanian [reports]( a professor who had spoken at a pro-Palestinian rally received a death threat. And in a noncampus incident that could be a harbinger of things to come on campus, the Council on American-Islamic Relations was [forced]( to move its annual banquet to a secret location after receiving violent threats. If the political dynamics on campuses over the past decade represent a second cycle of the culture wars of the late ’80s and early ’90s, today’s overtly militant rhetoric, and the occasional escalation from rhetoric to deed, resembles instead a return to the instabilities of the late 1960s, when, as the historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz [writes]( “violence or the talk of violence filled the air.” In the 1969-70 academic year, Horowitz says, when campus protests over the Vietnam War and the draft peaked, there were 410 campus incidents that “involved damage to property, and 230, physical violence.” What Horowitz calls the “transformation of campus cultures” in the 1960s saw the consolidation of political activism as an available campus subculture, one that, in its more militant reaches, degraded into “guerrilla fantasy,” in the apt phrase of the historian Allen Matusow. The persistence of such fantasies is attested to in the appearance on campus of images of stylized Hamas fighters in hang gliders, or in the [projection]( of “GLORY TO OUR MARTYRS” onto university buildings. Still, it seems unlikely that Middle Eastern geopolitics, no matter how bloody, will stimulate militancy on American campuses in the same way the existential peril of the draft did. And while there have been some ugly incidents in the past few weeks, so far they remain rare, and isolated. Perhaps concerns over a surge of campus violence and antisemitism are, as one professor tweeted, a “moral panic.” That would be the best-case scenario. SPONSOR CONTENT | Jobs for the Future [Jobs for the Future Wants the Future to Include All of Us]( NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. A conversation with Bryan Alexander On November 16, at 2 p.m., EST, I’ll be joining the higher-education thinker [Bryan Alexander]( to discuss academic freedom, campus speech, religion and blasphemy — and, doubtless, the pressures on academic freedom exerted by protests and counterprotests over the Israel-Hamas war. It’s free, streaming, and open to all — I hope you’ll join us. Register [here](. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Is STEM Education Broken?]( By David Auerbach [STORY IMAGE]( A new book argues that graduates aren’t staying in tech jobs. That’s not the real problem. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Why Do Humanists Think They Can Save the Planet?]( By Blake Smith [STORY IMAGE]( A literary scholar tackles global warming, with predictably dubious results. THE REVIEW | ESSAY [In the Humanities, Open-Endedness Should Not Be an End in Itself]( By Caroline Levine [STORY IMAGE]( We dwell in possibility, but action is what’s needed. Recommended - “Being a nonrelativist about the shape of the Earth, however, doesn’t require you to be a nonrelativist about everything.” In Aeon, Daniel Callcut [writes about]( Bernard Williams’s qualified moral relativism. - “Despite having written a book that emphatically deserves the term ‘magisterial,’ Clark ends up straining in his attempts to connect 1848 to the present moment.” In The Nation, David A. Bell [reviews]( Christopher Clark’s Revolutionary Spring. - “His characters act out philosophical problems via their professions, as if they might resolve the question of who they are through what they do.” In The Baffler, Robert Rubsam [on the filmmaker]( Paul Schrader’s disturbing late trilogy. - “We have to right now, right now, already start talking about political solutions that provide security first — security and equality and justice.” That’s Yael Berda, speaking on a [panel]( of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in The Point. Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. Yours, Len Gutkin SPONSOR CONTENT | University of Bath [Combatting Alzheimer’s Disease with Early Detection]( By 2050, it is estimated that over 12 million Americans will be living with progressive, degenerative diseases. Learn more about how researchers at the University of Bath are revolutionizing early detection to enhance care for patients. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [Surviving as a Small College - The Chronicle Store]( [Surviving as a Small College]( The past decade has been especially hard on small colleges. There’s stiffer competition for traditional-age students and many students are harder to win over. [Order your copy]( to examine the challenges facing small colleges, insights on how they might surmount them, and the benefits distinct to these unique institutions. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2023 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037