Why is anti-Semitism such a problem at elite universities?

Whether it’s Harvard, Pennsylvania, Oxford or Cambridge, if there are large endowments and manicured lawns then, it seems, anti-Semitism is virulent. As the academic year comes to an end, we need to discuss the bigotry that has been unleashed at elite universities across Britain and America. The latest example to hit the headlines occurred at Columbia University this week. Three deans have been ‘removed’ for sending text messages containing anti-Semitic tropes in an incident that reveals much about the way elite anti-Semitism plays out in universities today.

Anti-Semitism has been a growing issue at Columbia for some months. In December, Columbia’s president was invited but, citing scheduling conflicts, declined to appear before a congressional hearing that exposed the evasive and legalistic way in which the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania dismissed campus anti-Semitism. The university later became the site of student protests, with chants of ‘burn Tel Aviv to the ground’ and one student in April arguing that ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’.