John Braun: As students return, campuses must prevent return of antisemitic behavior
Posted Friday, September 20, 2024
Eighty years ago, a lawyer who had fled to the United States from Poland a few years earlier combined an ancient Greek word and a Latin word to make a new term: genocide.
The word was coined specifically to describe the mass murders committed by the Nazis, which would come to be known as the Holocaust.
By this time in 1944, the Soviet Union's Red Army had already begun to discover the concentration camps where millions of people, particularly Jews, were slaughtered. This happened under what General Dwight D. Eisenhower called “conditions of indescribable horror” following his visit to a camp liberated by American soldiers in spring 1945.
For much of the past year the word “genocide” has been thrown around liberally by those protesting the war that followed the surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists. That invasion resulted in the largest loss of Jewish lives in a single day since the Holocaust.
But no word can justify the antisemitic behavior, including harassment and vandalism, seen from pro-Hamas protesters around our nation — much of which has occurred at higher-education campuses, including some here in Washington.
As we approach the one-year mark since the Oct. 7 massacre, the question is not whether there will be a resurgence of pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests. It's whether the higher-ed campuses in our state and elsewhere can manage to protect the First Amendment rights of all to speak freely and peacefully assemble without sacrificing the First Amendment right of all, including Jewish students, to freely practice their religion.
In May, after illegal encampments had sprung up at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Western Washington University in Bellingham and the University of Washington's main campus in Seattle, I called on administrators at those institutions to protect speech but take action against lawless behavior.
This behavior went beyond the occupation of public property. At UW, at least, it included the theft and destruction of Israeli flags by pro-Hamas protesters and the defacing of campus buildings with antisemitic graffiti.
On all three campuses, the "action" from leadership ultimately — and unfortunately — took the form of concessions to the protesters, along with amnesty for those who had broken rules and violated student conduct policies.
The lack of decisive leadership shown in the spring is hardly going to deter protesters going forward, judging from the reaction of the organizers of the "United Front for Palestine Liberation" at UW.
After agreeing to clear their illegal encampment, the group publicly stated its intention to use other tactics in the future to pressure the university into cutting ties with the Boeing Company and Israel — two concessions the protesters wanted but had failed to extract.
“In the future” at UW begins with the Sept. 25 start of fall quarter. Western’s fall quarter also begins that day, while Evergreen students are scheduled to return to classes Sept. 30. That allows a week or more for those with antisemitic and anti-American agendas to plot what they may do on and around Oct. 7.
Down in Los Angeles, fall quarter at the University of California-Los Angeles begins Sept. 23. Jewish students there can have some confidence that they will no longer be barricaded from what protesters called a “Jew Exclusion Zone” at the center of the campus, as they were in the spring.
That’s because a mid-August injunction from a federal judge orders UCLA to prohibit discrimination against Jewish students, and ensure their access to programs, activities and campus areas.
UCLA argued that it had no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the “exclusion zone” was created by third-party protesters. At the same time, the school made the outrageous claim that it is committed to “fostering a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination, and harassment.”
What a meaningless declaration. If the university was truly serious about having a welcoming, harassment-free culture, it never would have allowed the Jew-hating protesters to act as they did.
The Washington State Democratic Party suffers from the same double standard. The platform published on its website states a commitment to “learning about and acting against injustice wherever it is found," and striving tirelessly to "eliminate the roots of hatred and bigotry.”
Yet in June, at its state convention, rank-and-file Democrats could not bring themselves to condemn the actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization that is clearly controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Apparently that particular sort of injustice, hatred and bigotry is different.
The Democrats' candidate for governor, Bob Ferguson, has shown himself to be similarly timid.
During the civil unrest of 2020, when protesters took over a six-block area of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood for a month, attorney general Ferguson couldn't manage a word about how people still deserved to feel safe when in that area.
In May, candidate Ferguson finally broke his silence, declaring students must be able to attend class “without fear or obstruction.” It was a completely forgettable statement, like UCLA’s free-from-intimidation nonsense, that was completely ignored by protesters.
Does anyone question how the Republican candidate for governor, former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, would respond to lawbreakers if he becomes chief executive?
Out of all the responses to protests on university campuses, the gold standard was set by Ben Sasse, a former Republican U.S. senator, when he was president of the University of Florida earlier this year.
His message to students in the spring was simple: We will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly — but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended.
About a month after UW-Seattle protesters ended their encampment, the university’s president announced she will step down next June. This month, writing to alumni, she acknowledged the “deepening polarization and rising extremism in both our country and around the world” but declared the UW is obliged to provide its students with the tools to “engage in meaningful dialogue with those who hold different perspectives, experiences and beliefs.”
Let's hope UW does a far better job of backing up those lofty words than UCLA did. An October repeat of the conflict seen at the Seattle campus in May would hardly qualify as a lesson on engaging in meaningful dialogue.
The space between the start of fall classes at UW, Western and Evergreen and the Oct. 7 one-year observance of the Hamas-led massacre means there is ample opportunity to be proactive and clearly communicate the rules concerning religious freedom and the freedom of speech.
It’s time for campus administrators to display the decisive leadership not seen in the spring, and prevent the return of antisemitism. They must do better.
Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.