The pro-Palestinian protests that erupted on many college campuses in the spring of 2024 gave rise to a surge of complaints about antisemitism at colleges across the United States. Under pressure to respond, Columbia and Harvard Universities have both in the past year adopted into policy a common definition of antisemitism, using the text as a guide in discrimination investigations. But defining the line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and antisemitism has long bedeviled scholars, and refereeing such cases invites concerns about free speech and academic freedom. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism, upon which Columbia and Harvard now rely, wasn’t ever intended to be a speech code and shouldn’t be used as such, says Kenneth Stern, who helped to draft the text about two decades ago. But how, then, should colleges respond to concerns about hatred and prejudice aimed at Jewish people?

Colleges Use His Antisemitism Definition to Censor. He Calls It a ‘Travesty.’ (The Chronicle)

The Great Antisemitism Debate (The Chronicle)

Why Anti-Jewish Discrimination on Campuses Might Not Violate Title VI (The Chronicle)

UC Berkeley Hands Over 160 Names to the Federal Government for ‘Potential Connection’ to Antisemitism. (The Chronicle)

Guest
Kenneth S. Stern, director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College.

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

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