AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ARE HARDLY WORTH THE OUTRAGEOUS TUITION, OPPRESSIVE DEBT, OR MINDLESS INDOCTRINATION IN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Is it time for Jews to walk away from America's universities?

 

By Abraham H. Miller

 

Israel Hayom

July 24, 2020

 

In response to an alarming spike in campus anti-Semitism, the Jewish community is debating whether it should walk away from colleges and universities that once restricted its children with quotas and now openly permits their harassment.

You can talk about systemic and structural racism, but on American campuses, African Americans and other select minorities have powerful advocates for their causes.

Whether through the office of residence life or that of the dean of diversity and inclusion, the slightest hint that the campus environment is unwelcoming in any way to certain minorities will be met with the strongest possible response, even to the point of shredding traditions of free speech or academic freedom in the process.

The very notion of an unwelcoming environment mobilizes the campus bureaucracy and large segments of the student community through "intersectionality" to close ranks, denounce the offense and root out the offenders.

Contrast that with the environment Jewish students face. They receive eviction notices under their doors. They must put up with the phony and vile accusations during "Israel Apartheid Week" that are linked to an upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents, including violence. They can be told, as they are at San Francisco State University, that they are not welcome if they are Zionists.

They can be accused of having undue influence, as a Muslim faculty member at University of California, Berkeley rattles off a list of buildings named after Jewish donors, as if there is something sordid in Jewish donations, while ignoring that Middle East studies departments are flush with foreign money. They must endure endless attempts within student governments to get the institution to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, known as BDS, that even if affirmed will never be lawfully implemented, knowing that the function of such is to demonize Israel and Jews.

Few administrators speak for them. No part of the intersectionality community will come to their defense. The campus bureaucracy doesn't care if they feel welcome. In fact, a complaint to the dean of diversity and inclusion will often result in a lecture telling them they are responsible of their own harassment.

Courses in Middle East politics are all too frequently taught by Palestinian sympathizers who use the classroom to stir up anti-Semitism by demonizing Israel and Jews.

So, is it time for Jews to leave the university? It isn't a new question. Some 30 years ago, fundamentalist Christians and conservatives began asking themselves the same question. We might talk about diversity but finding a fundamentalist Christian or political conservative in a faculty position in a major university is a rarity. The environment actively discourages them.

There is no such thing as intellectual diversity, especially in the current climate of groupthink.

A university no longer needs classrooms, dormitories, bars, recreation facilities and athletic teams. Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, distance learning was on the ascent.

The British in the 19th century created college learning through correspondence for the overseas bureaucracy. Now the BBC's partner, the Open University, awards degrees to the doctoral level through online learning.

There will always be elite schools with exalted reputations that will draw in-residence students, but most second-tier colleges and universities are hardly worth the outrageous tuition, oppressive debt, or mindless indoctrination in political correctness and anti-Semitism. They will be replaced by the Internet.

So, let Jews use their contributions, building funds, and endowments to create their own universities of whatever model or models they deem appropriate.

Learning is second nature to us. We are not only the People of the Book, but the people who love books.

Given structural and systemic anti-Semitism on campus, any Jewish parents who send their children to a secular Jewish college or university should be given a tax credit, both federal and state, for being constructively unable to use the pubic education system because of systemic anti-Semitism.

The system, in general, does not want our children, and much of it is going to collapse anyway. It is only a matter of time before the bricks and mortar of many universities are replaced by the Internet.

We should get ahead of the curve by the judicious use of technology and financing to build our own system.