Antisemitism up significantly at MSU since Oct. 7, Jewish studies leader says

FRIDAY, Dec. 15 — Multiple incidents of antisemitism have occurred at Michigan State University this year, the head of the university’s Jewish Studies institute said.

“There has been a significant increase in incidents since Oct. 7,” said Yael Aronoff, director of the Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel, citing the start of the Israeli-Hamas war.

“These range from comments trivializing the Holocaust in the context of making anti-Zionist statements, Jewish students being put on the spot to condemn Israel, flyers being circulated that perpetuate conspiracy theories about Jews, posts on MSU class of 2027 snapchat groups that shared antisemitic posts incorrectly accusing Israel of harvesting the organs of Palestinians and ‘becoming what you once hated’ with a picture of Hitler next to Netanyahu,” she said.

She added that for the first time there was “concern expressed over placing a Chanukkah menorah in a residential hall because that would represent ‘taking sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and causing grief to some'."

“The celebration of a Jewish religious holiday is not taking a side on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The incidents she cited come at a time of increased concern about antisemitism on campuses that were out in the spotlight last week in a congressional hearing in Washington.

Next year, these instances will be added to the MSU institute’s guide on antisemitism. The current version, titled “A Guide on Antisemitism for the MSU Community 2023” and published in January, cited over 100 incidents of antisemitism that were reported in the past six years by Michigan State University students.

The guide lists dozens of examples of reported harassment at MSU, “ranging from “jokes” about Jews to direct verbal and physical attacks.” Instances of vandalism — typically graffiti featuring swastikas and holocaust imagery — were also prevalent. “Flyers accusing Jews of responsibility for the ‘Covid agenda’ were distributed in the vicinity of the MSU campus, in driveways of Delta Township residents,” the report said in citing a January 2023 incident.

Since then, Aronoff said, “There have been multiple incidents of antisemitism that have taken place at MSU, and our updated guide for 2024 will include them.”

While the authors couldn’t have predicted Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, the guide has become even more relevant in recent months, during which the U.S. Education Department has opened investigations at 29 colleges, universities and school districts nationwide in response to alleged incidents of antisemitism.

The 23-page document has since become “a model for other universities,” Aronoff said. American University Professor Pam Nadel cited the MSU guide in written testimony presented last week to the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce at its hearing on antisemitism on campus. Nadel had used MSU’s guide as a reference for a version created for American University.

The hearing received national attention for testimony by Harvard President Claudine Gay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. Their legalistic answers when they were asked if calls for the genocide of Jews violated university policies on bullying and harassment resulted in anger in many quarters.

Rep. Elisa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan’s 7th Congressional District joined 12 other representatives in signing a letter expressing their disappointment in the trio’s responses.

Slotkin said the letter, which called for universities to revisit their codes of conduct to better protect Jewish students and those from other marginalized groups, “speaks for itself.”

“If calls for the genocide of Jewish — or any — people do not violate university policies, then it is time to reexamine those policies and codes of conduct,” Slotkin told City Pulse this week.

That letter did not go as far as to demand the resignations of the three college presidents. However, another letter, released on the same day and signed by 71 Republicans and three Democrats, did. On Saturday, Magill stepped down as Penn’s president, but Gay and Kornbluth remain in their roles, due, in part, to mounting support from some leaders, students, staff and alumni groups.

Still, Slotkin said Magill’s resignation is a sign that “public response and community pressure is already making an impact.”

“While it is up to the Harvard and MIT communities to decide what is best for those schools, it’s important that universities be safe places for students of all cultures, religions, and creeds,” she said.

House lawmakers followed these letters up on Wednesday with a 303-126 vote for a resolution condemning antisemitism on college campuses. One Republican and 125 Democrats  voted against the measure.

Kevin Guskiewicz, MSU’s incoming president, was not immune to these mounting tensions in his introductory press conference on Monday. When asked to weigh in on the situation, he referenced some of his actions as the chancellor at the University of North Carolina.

“On Oct. 12, I spoke publicly about and condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas and talked about the need for the community to come together, that we would not tolerate violence in any way on our campus, that our campus in no way would allow antisemitism or prejudice of any type,” Guskiewicz said. “That’s exactly how I would handle it here.”

When he officially takes up his new position on March 4, Guskiewicz said that his focus would be “to help our campus community better understand this conflict, of which there is a lot of misinformation, and social media has only made this worse.”

“We, as a leading global public research university, have a responsibility to help educate and model the way in which we should have respectful discourse around some of the world’s biggest challenges,” he added.

Guskiewicz has issued several statements regarding antisemitism and other forms of discrimination in his time as UNC’s chancellor. In April 2019, his first year at the helm, he issued a response to a video depicting students singing an antisemitic song at a joint UNC-Duke University conference. In it, Guskiewicz said he was “heartbroken.”

“I stand steadfast against antisemitism and hate in all its forms,” he said at the time. “The Carolina spirit is not about hateful language that divides us, but about civil discourse that advances ideas and knowledge. We must continue to aspire together to that ideal.”

In September 2021, Guskiewicz issued a statement titled “Confronting antisemitism in our world,” which called antisemitism “one of the oldest and most persistent of hatreds, manifesting itself around the world, our country, and even on our campus.”

“At Carolina, we unequivocally reject and deplore antisemitism. It has no place on our campus,” he wrote, adding that he’d met with the UNC Hillel chapter a few years prior and “came away from that conversation recognizing the complexities surrounding these discussions and the ways that Zionism is an integral part of many of our Jewish students’ identity.”

He then championed “rigorous, informed debate,” as an antidote, which he said “extends to the difficult and sensitive set of topics relating to the history and future of Israel and Palestine.”

“I believe we must recognize the line between some expressions of anti-Zionism and actual antisemitism. I have heard from students and alumni who’ve felt unwelcome and marginalized by discourse crossing that line, and their experience is troubling to me,” Guskiewicz said.

He ended that statement noting that he wanted to “understand better the concerns I’ve heard from many in our community who think the University has not been forthcoming enough in recognizing antisemitism and communicating our efforts to combat it,” suggesting that campus leaders hold listening sessions to “discuss concerns around all forms of discrimination and harassment, including but not limited to antisemitism.”

When he assumes the presidency next year, Guskiewicz will oversee a student body that has surpassed 51,000. Of that total, 3,500, or about 6.8% of students, identify as Jewish — a distinctively higher rate than that of the general U.S. population, of which Jewish adults make up about 2.4%.

For their part, Jewish students at MSU who were contacted to comment for this story were hesitant to do so. “At this point, I do not want to be interviewed on this subject, for my privacy and security,” one replied.

While recent discussions have primarily centered around antisemitism, Aronoff pointed out that discriminatory behavior also poses a threat to other minority groups on campus, including Islamophobia. She said recent efforts to raise awareness on this issue will continue.

“We hope that some in person education on antisemitism and Islamophobia will be offered to all incoming students, faculty, staff, and administrators at MSU,” Aronoff said, adding that the Serling Institute itself is developing a one-credit online course on antisemitism. She hopes to see hundreds of students enroll when it’s available.

In addition, she said, “we have partnered with Muslim Studies to offer an eight-hour series, “Conversations on Antisemitism and Islamophobia,” each semester through the Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.” They have also offered training to residential advisors and are scheduled to do meet with MSU Athletic Department staff members to train them next month.

“However, we currently reach a fraction of the MSU community,” Aronoff said, adding that she hopes “all community members will have some education on this significant and rising problem.”