Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has criticized higher education institutions over their handling of anti-Semitism on campus, which has been prevalent since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Nov. 24, Mr. Daniels—also Purdue University President Emeritus—said U.S. colleges were “wallowing in moral confusion and hypocrisy” over anti-Semitism.
He said these were a “cause for dejection at how far the sector has fallen” and “how little many young Americans know of essential history once so immediate and universally understood.”
“It isn’t just the students on many campuses who have a flawed understanding of Israel’s history and a warped moral sensibility,” the former governor said.
“By now, too many of those running these institutions have, to their detriment, spent their adult lives closeted with people with views identical to their own but vastly different from a majority of their fellow citizens.
“It came as a shock to them that their moral-equivalence dithering over Israel’s right to self-defense met with such outrage,” Mr. Daniels added.
He said that “after pontificating so often about ’microaggressions,’ ‘hostile environments’ and ’hate speech' of vastly lesser virulence and almost never true violence,” faculty members “could not suddenly remain institutionally mute about the real items.”
“Having suppressed and ‘canceled’ speech at variance with the dogmas dominant on their campus, they had no answer for those who called, unwisely in my opinion, for the suppression of speech or the outright banning of organizations espousing hatred and endorsing atrocity.
Universities in Spotlight
The ongoing Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 deadly terror attack on Israeli border communities, has triggered protests and debates at several U.S. universities.
The university has suspended its chapters of Students of Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
The University of Pennsylvania has seen anti-Semitic messages projected onto campus buildings earlier this month and a Palestinian literature event in September where there was anti-Semitic rhetoric.
At Cooper Union, Jewish students were trapped inside the library as pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic protesters were banging on the doors in an apparent attempt to intimidate them.
The schools under investigation for alleged Title VI violations include Columbia University, Cornell University, Wellesley College, University of Pennsylvania, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Lafayette College, and Maize Unified School District.
Title VI under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits institutions that get federal funding from discriminating against people based on skin color or ethnicity.
The Education Department has not specified any anti-Semitic or Islamophobic incidents at the institutions, but said that complaints against five of the schools were about anti-Semitism and the other two were about Islamophobia.
“Hate has no place in our schools, period,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
“When students are targeted because they are—or are perceived to be—Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, or any other ethnicity or shared ancestry, schools must act to ensure safe and inclusive educational environments where everyone is free to learn,” he added.
