Selective Sympathy The Double Standard in Confronting Jewish Student Trauma and Antisemitism after the October 7th Massacre

Key Findings:

Many school leaders were unwilling to unequivocally condemn the attack or acknowledge its perpetrator or terrorist nature, and almost none identified its antisemitic motivation. Specifically, while 65% of the post-October 7th statements condemned the attack, almost that many (60%) also accused Israel of perpetrating violence that harmed Palestinians or violated their civil rights, suggesting a kind of moral equivalence that likely diluted the sympathy and support felt by Jewish students. Only 53% mentioned that Hamas had carried out the attack, and less than half (45%) used the word “terrorism” or “terrorist.” Strikingly, only 4% of the statements named antisemitism as motivating the attack, even though Hamas has proudly committed itself to the genocide of the Jewish people.

While more than 80% of statements acknowledged the trauma the attack may have caused “to those in the campus community with ties to the region” and reminded them of existing campus resources, shockingly, only 14% acknowledged the trauma of Jewish campus members specifically, and only 5% offered them support or resources for dealing with their trauma. Finally, a paltry 2% of the statements acknowledged that the Hamas attack could incite antisemitism on their own campus or committed to addressing antisemitism.

Analysis revealed an unambiguous and discriminatory double standard on all four measures of school leaders’ responsiveness to group trauma and fears (see Methodology summary), with leaders being far less responsive to Jewish students’ trauma and fears than to those of their African American and Asian/ Asian American students. While 65% of statements condemned the Hamas attack (with many of them also blaming Israel for harming Palestinians) close to 100% unequivocally condemned the incidents affecting Blacks and Asians/Asian Americans; while only 14% of statements acknowledged the impact of the Hamas attack on Jewish members of their campus community, 90% to 100% acknowledged the emotional trauma suffered by their Black and Asian/Asian American communities following attacks targeting members of those communities; and while only 4% of statements identified the antisemitic motivation of the Hamas attack and 2% committed to addressing antisemitism, 100% of statements named racism and anti-Asian hate as the motivator of their respective incidents, and more than 90% committed to addressing bigotry directed against Blacks and Asians/Asian Americans.