Taking a break from her work dismantling her own department, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon last week threatened roughly $9 billion of grants and contracts with Harvard because of “the school’s failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination.” As shocking as that threat was, it wasn’t entirely a surprise: Since the Justice Department convened its Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, 60 universities have received notice that they are being monitored or investigated.
With an administration seemingly determined to do everything, everywhere, all at once, discerning its true priorities can sometimes be challenging. But on this one point, Donald Trump wants no ambiguity: “My promise to Jewish Americans is this,” he said on the campaign trail. “With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.
All of these agendas — from dismantling basic government functions to crushing the independence of cultural and educational organizations to criminalizing political speech to legitimating petty presidential vendettas — endanger the principles and institutions that have actually made this country great. For Jews, a number of these agendas do something more: They pose a direct threat to the very people they purport to help. Jews who applaud the administration’s crackdown will soon find that they do so at their peril.
Among the first high-profile targets of the anti-antisemitic push have been a recent Columbia graduate and a current Tufts University graduate student, one a lawful permanent resident of this country and the other one here on a student visa, who spoke out in favor of Palestinian rights. Both have been handcuffed, driven off and indefinitely detained. Neither has been charged with a crime.
Abductions by government agents; unexplained, indefinite detentions; the targeting of allegedly dangerous ideas; lists of those under government scrutiny; official proclamations full of bluster and bile — Jews have been here before, many times, and it does not end well for us. The rule of law and the right to freedom of thought and expression are essential safeguards for everyone, but especially so for members of groups whose ideas or practices don’t always align with the mainstream. As M. Gessen recently wrote in these pages, “A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others.” What our government is doing now is wrong in itself, but beyond that, it poses a bigger threat to Jewish people’s safety than all the campus protests ever could.
