Why DEI Programs Can't Address Campus Antisemitism

Key Findings:

With the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, Jewish students have consistently been overlooked despite the prevalence of programs aimed at protecting minorities. This essay explores why DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs specifically have not diminished the prevalence of harassment towards Jewish students on college campuses today.

First, the author introduces the history of DEI programs and why they have come to prioritize certain groups. The earliest programs were tied to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibited federally funded institutions (e.g. universities) from any form of discrimination based on color or race. Enacted in response to a rise in racial tensions towards African American, Hispanic, Asian-American and Indigenous communities, the result was a series of equal-opportunity and affirmative-action programs favoring these specific groups, not Jews. The Jewish community was legally included in DEI programs in 2004, when they became eligible for Title VI protection (up until which point they were only considered a religious group). 

The author argues that despite this legal obligation, DEI programs have continued to exclude Jewish students. The author suggests two principal reasons:

(1) Jews are not considered an oppressed group. They are perceived as white and privileged, and therefore undeserving of the efforts of DEI programs. 

(2) Most DEI officials are unwilling to recognize anti-Zionism as antisemitism. Forms of antisemitism that are acknowledged are overt, such as swastika tags and Neo-Nazi flyers. The author argues that this is because the perpetrators of these antisemitic acts are racist towards other minorities as well. Meanwhile, anti-Zionist harassment tends to be committed by members of minorities served by DEI programs, and therefore, a blindspot exists in being able to recognize them as perpetrators. Furthermore, the author warns that DEI staff members often view Zionism through the colonizer vs. colonized lens, just as they do the harassment and protection of other minorities.

The author concludes by firmly stating that DEI programs are not the right way to address antisemitism on campus. A more successful approach would be educating students on what Zionism really is—  a religious, historical and ethnic connection Jews have to the land of Israel; and that this connection is intrinsic to Jewish identity. Furthermore, Title VI is based on a variety of definitions of antisemitism that the White House has approved, some of them excluding anti-Zionism as a criteria. Therefore, from a legal standpoint, DEI programs have the license to practice antisemitism if they follow a definition that does not consider anti-Zionism as antisemitic.