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The omission of antisemitism

Many Jewish students are worried to go to campus in view of threatening and hateful messages and even open hostilities at some Canadian campuses. These are taking place within a wider context of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war.

The silence of some Canadian universities in addressing antisemitism, in particular when considered alongside otherwise active approaches toward equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization (EDID) and racial justice needs to be explicitly addressed.

Legal action has recently been filed against some Canadian universities for failing to address antisemitism.

Anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism

I’m an education scholar whose work centres on equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization and anti-racism.

My engagement in this work has been shaped by my own background migrating to Canada from Israel 12 years ago. My graduate studies in Jewish history, with focus on Holocaust memory, made me attuned to injustice.

My migration was informed by concern my children wouldn’t be able to grow up without absorbing the racism against Palestinians that is pervasive in Israeli society. I now fear that my children, and students, will be absorbing antisemitism.

Antisemitism in society at large, on campus

Antisemitism — the prejudice, hatred, and oppression of Jews and one of the oldest forms of racism — is an ongoing concern in Canada.

There has been work at some post-secondary institutions to consider how EDID frameworks need to address antisemitism and also Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism both in the context of Israel and Palestinian issues and in the everyday.

But many EDID frameworks — both of specific institutions, and larger guiding frameworks — do not explicitly address these problems. For example, the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ 2021 “Charter on EDID,” which states the need for “a more resolute effort to achieve [EDID] in our disciplines [and] fields of inquiry,” mentions categories of race, ethnicity and does not name antisemitism.

Addressing covert and explicit discrimination

Because racism and discrimination are often covert in higher education institutions, EDID initiatives focus on creating systemic and institutional changes in all levels and aspects of institutions, including through policies, leadership, hiring, curriculum and student experiences. But this frame is also applied to specific discrimination cases and complaints in higher education.

Universities’ equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization initiatives are emerging and should rightfully comprehensively respond to specific forms of racism and discrimination. For example, in 2020, work on the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education was launched and multiple universities have since signed it, pledging “shared recognition of the realities of anti-Black racism.”

Focus on decolonization

Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its 94 Calls to Action, decolonization and Indigenization of Canadian higher education plans have become central for conceiving EDID work.

For example, the second part of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Igniting Change 2021 report, from the Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization, focuses on “Principles, Guidelines, and Promising Practices of Decolonization.”

In Canadian universities, an EDID focus on issues of decolonization and racism is important, given histories and legacies of colonial oppression, racism, exclusion and marginalization affecting Black, Indigenous and people of colour in Canada.

Yet this focus, in specific institutional approaches to EDID, fails to address and at times downplays the history of antisemitism and its ongoing reality in Canada.

Whiteness and Jews’ ambivalent racialized status

Several factors have contributed to this. The majority of North American Jews self-identify as white. “Whitening” allowed white-passing Jews to become part of a white Christian mainstream in ambivalent ways.

This process has reduced Jewish heritage to simply a religious/faith affiliation, even while Jews remain vulnerable to pernicious white supremacist and antisemitic beliefs about Jewishness being “in the blood.”

No doubt, it is complex to identify Jews as a category under “race,” since such a categorization is reminiscent of Nazi ideology. On the other hand, if we understand race as a social construct, the absence of naming antisemitism in EDID frameworks is deeply problematic.

Tools to acknowledge antisemitism

This prevents scholars and educators from acknowledging the historical, institutional, ideological and cultural underpinnings of antisemitism.

Academics working on anti-racism issues trying to bring up antisemitism are often told this is not part of the EDID agenda.

A report by a senior adviser on antisemitism at the University of Toronto’s medical school described how instances of antisemitism were dismissed as political activism against Israel, protected under academic freedom even while this activism was rife with antisemitic dog whistles (such as seeing Jews as “controlling the media” or “owning the university.”)

This conflation points to EDID settler-colonial discourses that position Jews as white colonial forces.

This framing fails to acknowledge the historical, cultural, and spiritual ties of Jews to the land of Israel and also erases the reality that Jews both in Israel and in diasporic communities globally are not a uniform ethnic group. For example, about half of the Jewish population of Israel are “Mizrachi”, descendants of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Not about shielding Israel from critique

Addressing the complexity of Jewish identities doesn’t mean justifying Israeli state politics or shielding Israel from critique.

Critiquing Israel is not antisemitism. Many Jewish and Israeli scholars have strong criticisms toward Israeli politics, just as many Jews object to the killing of civilians in Gaza, and support “free Palestine.”

CBC news video announcing the death of Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver who was killed in the Hamas attacks.

Unpacking history and current events is important for EDID work.

But portraying Jewish peoples as the embodiment of colonial oppression is an antisemitic trope that legitimizes hate and violence.

Antisemitic tones, slogans in political calls

Antisemitism was seen after Oct. 7 when some academics publicly celebrated the Hamas massacre as a form of decolonizing and liberation, while victim-blaming those murdered and kidnapped.

Colleagues shared video with me of people at University of British Columbia marching and chanting “there is only one solution: Intifada revolution.” For many Jews, this chillingly evokes the “final solution.”

In other protests, demonstrators have carried signs saying: “Keep the world clean,” portraying a trash can with a Star of David in it.

Including all experiences

The failure of EDID to address antisemitism makes Jewish students targets of microaggression and hate on campuses.

Universities must aim to create educational institutions in which all lived experiences are included.

A good way to address antisemitism would be for specific universities and the higher education sector to launch a task force. In so doing universities would also need to address hard political conversations surrounding Israel and settler colonialism. Universities have tended not to address this because of complexity, but this can no longer be avoided.

Jewish students should not be made to feel less than or illegitimate as they attend university. We have a responsibility to condemn and actively address antisemitism as part of our commitment to EDID.The Conversation

Lilach Marom, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Posted on December 1, 2023November 30, 2023Author Lilach Marom SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITYCategories Op-EdTags antisemitism, campus, diversity, education, Israel, Palestine, racism, university
Two new scholarships

Two new scholarships

In an effort to lighten the financial challenges presented by the growing costs of higher education, Hillel International announced in November that it is launching two annual scholarships for students attending college anywhere in the United States and Canada. The two merit-based scholarships will total $4,000 US (roughly $5,200 Cdn) each and are available to any student who identifies as Jewish. The deadline for applications is March 15.

The Handeli First-Year Scholarship will be awarded annually to graduating high school students who demonstrate a record of leadership and volunteerism and are preparing to enter a four-year college or university. Students currently on a gap-year program are also eligible to apply.

The Hillel Campus Leadership Award, meanwhile, will be presented to full-time college students in their freshmen, sophomore or junior year who exhibit exceptional leadership skills and are pursuing a degree at an accredited school.

“Thanks to the estate of a wonderful donor, David Handeli, we were able to create the two new scholarship opportunities. Four students will receive awards this year, and we’ve already received more than 200 applications since the application went live in November and more than 1,000 applications have been started. Our hope is to expand these scholarships down the road, since we will have way more demand than supply,” Etan Harmalech, Hillel International’s vice-president of marketing, told the Independent.

For both scholarships, applicants must have a grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 or above to be considered. A full list of eligibility requirements can be found on the Hillel International website, hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships/eligibility-requirements-and-faqs. The applications for the respective scholarships can be also be found on the site, at hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships.

Like their counterparts throughout North America, Jewish college students and their families have had to contend with ever-mounting educational expenses, the increase in which over the past 20 years has exceeded the rise in household income.

The daunting cost in the United States, for example, was cited in a recent report by the College Board, an American nonprofit whose goal is to expand access to higher education. The report noted that the annual tuition for a college student had increased by more than 25% in the past decade for both private and public institutions. In several states, the cost for a year’s tuition competes with average income.

The average Canadian undergraduate pays close to $7,000 a year in tuition. Surveys conducted by Macleans in 2017 and 2018, however, found that the average cost of post-secondary education – with all of its expenses, such as rent, tuition and food, included – came in at just under $20,000 per year, with the commensurate level of debt rising with each additional year of study.

In British Columbia, students are confronted with one more challenge: finding affordable lodging near campus in an overheated housing market, an obstacle that is further exacerbated by the scarcity of available units, often leading to crowded living conditions or dwellings located far from the schools students attend.

“I am happy to see that these scholarships incentivize student involvement in Jewish life on campus. Hillels are a hub for Jewish life and often act as the last gas station before students head off into the working world,” said Sam Heller, the executive director of Hillel BC. “If we don’t get to them in college, there are fewer opportunities for Jewish young adults to engage with the community in an easy way and we may not see them until they start to have families and so on.”

Founded in 1923 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Hillel is the largest international Jewish student organization, with representation at more than 550 colleges and universities around the world. In British Columbia, a Hillel presence can be found at University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, Langara College, Quest University Canada, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

All applications will be reviewed by Hillel’s scholarship committee following the March 15 deadline. The recipients of the scholarships will be chosen and announced on May 1.

Students looking for more scholarship opportunities should visit Hillel’s Jewish Scholarship Portal (hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships/jewish-scholarships), which contains information on several hundred scholarships available to Jewish students.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Format ImagePosted on January 24, 2020January 22, 2020Author Sam MargolisCategories NationalTags education, financial aid, Hillel, scholarships, university, youth
Colleagues visit Chabad UBC

Colleagues visit Chabad UBC

Left to right: Rabbis Chaim Boyarsky, Moshe Goldman, Mordechai Silberberg, Chanoch Rosenfeld, Chalom Loeub and Zalman Zaltzman. (photo from Chabad UBC)

A delegation of rabbis who direct Chabad centres across Canada came to Vancouver last month, on Dec. 10. The purpose of the visit was to get a firsthand understanding of the day-to-day operations of the Chabad Jewish Student Centre at the University of British Columbia, which was established in 2013 by Rabbi Chalom and Esti Loeub.

The delegation included Rabbi Mordechai Silberberg, director of Chabad at University of Western Ontario; Rabbi Chanoch Rosenfeld, director of Chabad at McMaster University; Rabbi Moshe Goldman, director of Chabad of Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo; Rabbi Zalman Zaltzman, director of Chabad at Brock University; and Rabbi Chaim Boyarsky, director of the Chabad Student Network, which caters to Carleton University and University of Ottawa.

The rabbis direct their respective Chabad centres together with their wives, who are equally responsible for all of their operations. While each Chabad centre caters to the needs of its specific university students, there are some signature programs that all of them run. Weekly home-cooked Shabbat dinners free of charge, the Sinai Scholars Society, and holiday meals and services are some examples. Chabad of Western University, which was established in 1999, hosts hundreds of students every Friday night for Shabbat dinners, many of them Vancouver natives.

The rabbis began their visit at Café FortyOne, where they met with Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg, executive director of Chabad Lubavitch of British Columbia. Wineberg briefed them on the history of Chabad Lubavitch of Western Canada and his early days in Vancouver.

The group then headed to the AMS Student Nest at UBC, where they met and had lunch with the UBC Chabad student board, and heard about some of the activities that have been taking place on campus. At the Chabad Jewish Student Centre, they met with the Loeubs to discuss the operations and offer feedback. The day concluded with dinner at the Maple Grill followed by a farbrengen (Chassidic gathering).

“It meant a lot to us to have our colleagues fly across the country to visit us,” said Rabbi Loeub. “As we are one of the more recent Chabad on Campus centres to open in Canada, it was very helpful to hear words of advice and inspiration from these veteran directors.”

For more information about the programs offered at Chabad Jewish Student Centre-Vancouver, visit chabadubc.com or call Rabbi Loeub at 778-712-7703. For information on Chabad centres on national campuses and worldwide, visit chabadoncampus.org/directory.

Sue Silverman is a volunteer with Chabad Jewish Student Centre-Vancouver.

Format ImagePosted on January 24, 2020January 22, 2020Author Sue SilvermanCategories LocalTags Chabad, education, university

Speak in the new year

It is the season of new beginnings: new school year, newly turning leaves and a new Jewish year. On a leisurely drive on Labour Day Monday in suburban Vancouver, bright orange pumpkins that weren’t there last time we passed had suddenly exploded into full-sized squash seemingly overnight. Summer, of course, is officially with us until Sept. 23, but, especially if your household has kids (or teachers), summer unofficially ended when the first school bell rang on Tuesday.

This is the time of year for reflecting back and looking forward. The promise and excitement of the new mixes with nostalgia and other emotions about the passage of time and memories – good or bad – of what we leave behind.

This coming Monday, we will hear from four speakers at FEDtalks, the launch of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign. Among them is Isaac Herzog, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel who (in last week’s Independent) acknowledged that one of the challenges our global Jewish community faces is engaging and involving young Jewish people. As students return to post-secondary campuses in British Columbia, across Canada and around the world, we can anticipate the usual challenges – some years better or worse than others – of campaigns, referenda and assorted political shenanigans that have particular impacts on Jewish students.

Understandably, young people who have grown up with connections to Judaism, Jewish peoplehood and Israel will take exception to some of the things they will face. Some will rise admirably in these encounters, as we have seen year after year, when students at Hillel, Chabad and some ad hoc Jewish and Zionist organizations have spoken out against misleading and false expressions on their campuses. Others, also understandably, will avoid such unpleasant controversies and focus on less polarized topics and activities. Those who take up the frontlines in these battles deserve our community’s support.

There are broader issues than Zionism on campus. Free expression is top of mind for many professors, students, parents and other interested parties. A particular flare-up over the summer involved the Vancouver Pride Society (VPS), which puts on the city’s largest annual event, banning the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Public Library from participating in the Pride parade because they both provided space for presentations by speakers who are virulently vocal against the rights of transgender people. It was a rock and a hard place for many. The Pride society certainly has the right to welcome or exclude anyone they choose (although the amount of public funding and in-kind support they receive should require a degree of public accountability). But, seeing the province’s largest university and largest library system excluded from any event, for whatever reason, is upsetting. If ideas, however odious, cannot be discussed on a university campus or at a library, they cannot be openly discussed anywhere. Driving ugly ideas underground is not a solution. The answer to hate speech is anti-hate speech. And if, as critics said, the messages of the speakers were so insidious that they could lead to violence, then that was a job for the RCMP to confront, not, perhaps, the VPS.

A 2017 poll indicated that 69% of American students say that conservatives can “freely and openly” express their views on campuses, while 92% say the same about liberals. What the poll indicates, probably, is that being a conservative on campus today is more unpopular than being a liberal. Likewise, it is probably easier on most campuses to speak against Israel rather than for Israel. But does this mean an individual’s rights are being infringed? Unless there is a systematic and official injunction against the ideas someone expresses, the issue is probably not the right to speak freely and openly, but the courage and, not inconsequently, the privilege to do so.

Pro-Israel students have demonstrated courage in defending Israel against bad-faith campaigns and insinuations. In a significant number of cases, it has resulted in young adults who have become masters of community organizing and experts in responding to attacks – and, if they were not natural leaders before, they have developed skills that will advance them throughout their lives. Our instincts, as their elders, may be to shield them from the sometimes hateful ideas they will encounter. Instead, we should be supporting and encouraging them in confronting and contesting these ideas.

To all who are embarking on new adventures – and, especially at this time of year, aren’t all of us in some way? – may we be strengthened by courage, determination and the support of one another.

Posted on September 6, 2019September 4, 2019Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags free speech, new year, politics, university, Zionism
Guide to Jewish campus life

Guide to Jewish campus life

On May 8, Canadian Hillels in partnership with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) released Going Somewhere? The Canadian Guide to Jewish Campus Life. Inspired by Maclean’s annual university guide, Going Somewhere? Provides students with information about Jewish life on campuses across Canada, as well as tips on how Jewish students can make the most of their first-year experience.

Going Somewhere? includes campus-by-campus details on everything from Jewish student population numbers, access to kosher food, Jewish studies programs, academic exchanges with Israeli schools and popular housing locations for Jewish students, as well as Jewish social opportunities, such as holiday parties hosted by Hillel. Going Somewhere? also provides information about Jewish and pro-Israel campus advocacy opportunities, and paid internships offered by Hillel.

book cover - Going Somewhere? The Canadian Guide to Jewish Campus Life“We are proud to publish the first coast-to-coast Canadian guide to Jewish life on campus,” said Marc Newburgh, chief executive officer of Hillel Ontario, in a statement. “For Jewish students, the university experience provides a unique opportunity to connect with their community, shape their Jewish identity for the long-term and develop skills by engaging in Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy. Our hope is that Going Somewhere? will prove a valuable resource for students and their families.”

Judy Zelikovitz, vice-president of university and local partner services at CIJA, added, “CIJA is pleased to have contributed to Going Somewhere?… As the only Jewish student organization with staff on the ground at schools across the country, Hillel offers an unparalleled window into everything Jewish on campus. The practical advice and campus-by-campus details in Going Somewhere? make for required reading for every Jewish student as they consider their options for the fall.”

To download a free copy of Going Somewhere?, visit gettheguide.ca.

Format ImagePosted on May 19, 2017May 17, 2017Author CIJACategories BooksTags Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Hillel, university

Consumerism meets identity politics

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. The first examined Oberlin College’s “Jewish problem.”

When Nathan Heller’s “Letter from Oberlin: The Big Uneasy” appeared in The New Yorker (May 30) his sub-headline asked: “What’s roiling the liberal-arts campus?”

At least for some Jewish students, Oberlin’s obstacles to Jewish life are signs of two roiling processes: “identity politics” and higher education’s drift toward business models in which students primarily are customers.

From its origins in 1833, Oberlin College has been at the forefront of social changes. In particular, no institution in the United States has an older coeducational baccalaureate program. As well, before the Civil War, members of the Oberlin community were active in movements to abolish slavery. The college advertises that it “regularly admitted African American students beginning in 1835.”

Oberlin’s avant-garde history influences student applications and admissions, as well as faculty recruitment – and some unexpected campus activities. For example, in December 2015, unnamed members of the Africana community referred to Oberlin’s legacy and/or public relations when they delivered to the administration an undated multi-page list of “demands not suggestions,” which included a “four percent annual increase in black student enrolment”; “divestment from all prisons and Israel”; “that spaces throughout the Oberlin College campus be designated as [segregated] safe space for Africana identifying students” (exclusively?); that several professors (identified by name) should be subject to “immediate firing”; and that other professors should be given preferential treatment.

Oberlin College proclaims efforts to ameliorate affronts or afflictions perceived by cohorts such as African-Americans, Muslims, students with physical handicaps and non-heterosexual students. A “Campus Climate Report” (May 19, 2016) also includes a section on problems experienced by some Jewish students, but does not specifically deal with reports that “progressive” protesters who confront other forms of bigotry often deny the significance of antisemitism.

This phenomenon occurs on other campuses, too.

In August, the Washington Post published an op-ed focused on “an Iranian Jew,” Arielle Mokhtarzadeh, who traveled “to attend the annual Students of Color Conference” at the University of California, Berkeley. There she found: “Over the course of what was probably no longer than an hour, my history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered.”

Also in the Post, Molly Harris, a student at McGill University, addressed students just beginning post-secondary education: “Get ready to meet new people, learn things that fascinate you, and figure out who you are and who you want to be.

“If you’re Jewish, you should probably also prepare yourself for the various forms of anti-Israel sentiment, and maybe even antisemitism, you’re likely to encounter on your new college campus.

“In the past year alone, as a Jewish student at McGill University in Montreal, I’ve been called a ‘Zionist b—.’ I’ve been told several times that Jews haven’t suffered (never mind the Spanish Inquisition, Eastern European pogroms and centuries of violence and marginalization leading up to the Holocaust). I’ve seen my friends mocked for their Judaism in crude, hateful language on popular anonymous social media platforms.”

Following his May “Letter from Oberlin,” Heller again wrote in The New Yorker (Sept. 1): “Students … may try out defensive ethno-racial flag waving, religious and political dogmas, athletic and fraternal self-segregation…. My work elsewhere has made me think that this isn’t just an Oberlin, or liberal, thing.”

Indeed, on Aug. 5, the New York Times printed a front-page article about racial and identity politics at many campuses. This reporting was not about Oberlin, but it named other “small, selective liberal arts colleges” as well as Ivy League universities. An Amherst graduate said, “As an alumnus of the college, I feel that I have been lied to, patronized and basically dismissed as an old, white bigot….”

But perhaps Oberlin still is a cultural leader. In an Aug. 27 article, the Times mentioned Oberlin as a counter example to the University of Chicago, which sent first-year students a letter saying Chicago did not support “trigger warnings” and did not condone “safe spaces” nor disruptions of speakers. (Disclosure: I was a Chicago faculty member from 1968 to 1970.)

In Frank Bruni’s June 23 New York Times essay about Oberlin – as one of the campuses “roiled the most by struggles over political correctness” – he wrote: “Students at Oberlin and their counterparts elsewhere might not behave in such an emboldened fashion if they did not feel so largely in charge. Their readiness to press for rules and rituals to their liking suggests the extent to which they have come to act as customers – the ones who set the terms, the ones who are always right – and the degree to which they are treated that way.”

Bruni built upon a poignant essay about “Customer Mentality,” written in February 2014 for Inside Higher Ed by a Western Carolina University assistant professor of English, Nate Kreuter. When students transformed into customers, Kreuter observed concomitant re-purposing of campus infrastructure, curriculum and faculty.

Bruni provided photographs of water parks with pools and slides on campuses, and described campus entertainment complexes, golf putting greens and other resort-like amenities. He also wrote: “Small wonder that grade inflation is so pronounced and rampant, with A’s easy to come by and anything below a B-minus rare.”

Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore, told Bruni: “There’s a big difference between teaching students and serving customers.”

Kreuter in 2014 noted that the student-as-customer business model had adverse consequences within and beyond academic programs: “The impulse to protect the brand also frequently compels universities to shirk responsibility when missteps or scandals occur, rather than immediately taking responsibility and corrective action.” He argued that administrators may “protect the brand” in instances of “high-profile college athlete crime” or sexual assaults or injuries from fraternity hazing.

A Times essay (Sept. 4, 2016) by a Yale faculty member, Jim Sleeper, argued that right-wing “wealthy donors” exaggerate negative impacts of political correctness, while they promote more potent poisons. But he also agreed that: “Most university leaders serve … pressures to satisfy student ‘customers’ and to avoid negative publicity, liability and losses in ‘brand’ or ‘market share.’…”

Oberlin College’s publicists like to recall the institution’s abolitionist era rather than its place in the history of the Anti-Saloon League and Prohibition. So perhaps it is not surprising that Prof. Joy Karega could post anti-Jewish materials and conspiracy theories for many months, and that Oberlin administrators and trustees reacted only last March, after Karega generated condemnation both online and in worldwide print media – likely to harm Oberlin’s brand.

At the University of Lethbridge, Prof. Anthony Hall’s “globalization studies” promoted “open debate on the Holocaust” and claims that the 2001 destruction of New York’s World Trade Centre was a “Zionist job.” Administrators tolerated Hall for 26 years – suspending him only this month, after news stories about “possible violations of the Alberta Human Rights Act.”

During my one-to-one conversation with Oberlin College president Marvin Krislov in April, he told me that many students gave Karega high ratings. From a marketing perspective, favorable student evaluations may help justify annual tuition above $51,000 – costs above $66,000 including room and board. But if students give high ratings to a predilection for bigotry and conspiracy theories (and lack of scholarly accomplishment) then something has gone wrong with their education.

Bruni’s essay asked, “But what does the customer model [of college students] do to their actual education?” One Oberlin graduate responding to The Atlantic in December 2015 wrote: “There is now an atmosphere of close-mindedness, intellectual submission, conformity and fear.”

College and university emphasis on marketing to customers likely is linked to cost.

Tuition – and every other post-secondary education expense – has increased at a pace beyond general inflation (or household income gains). Consequently, total student debt in the United States now is about $1.2 trillion, according to the August Forbes – exceeding total credit card debt or the total of automobile financing in the entire American population.

This precarious state of affairs may be a response to reported correlation between higher education and greater lifetime earnings or lower unemployment; but correlation does not indicate cause and effect. Bruni refers to “an expectation among many students that their purchase of a college education should be automatically redeemable for a job….” But, as Kreuter wrote, “A post-secondary education is not a guarantee of success. It is not the straightforward purchase of a better future. It never has been.”

At Oberlin, in fact, the student newspaper published an article in March 2014 stating that “40% of [our] 2013 graduates are unemployed, and one-third of graduates are working in positions that do not require a degree.”

Of course, many Oberlin students and graduates have priorities other than high-income jobs; but one unidentified correspondent, writing to The Atlantic in December 2015, stated: “Oberlin students [do] want what other college students are asking for, whether they phrase it this way or not: better control of the college’s money.”

Oberlin, unlike most American campuses, has no fraternities or sororities. Historically, students lived in residences supervised by the administration, which also oversees most meals. So, students see what Oberlin does with funds for their food. But why have many top-tier media published articles discussing campus food complaints at the college?

The emphasis of complaints has not been that the food tastes bad, has dubious nutritional value, etc. Oberlin food complaints instead focus on meals that particular students deem to be culturally inappropriate or disrespectful. Mainstream media regard Oberlin’s food criticisms as curiosities sufficiently ludicrous to entertain a wide range of readers; but these cultural food fights are quite logical outcomes when the student-as-customer model meets racial and identity politics at the topic of food.

Likewise, identity issues can lead students to denounce “cultural appropriation,” not only in meals, but also in other aspects of life – clothing, terminology, music, books, even the curriculum. Novelist Lionel Shriver says that, if she did not reject criticisms of “cultural appropriation” in literature, then “all I could write about would be smart-alecky 59-year-old, five-foot-two-inch white women from North Carolina.”

And, as customers, students can demand not to take certain courses. At Oberlin, one of the “unmalleable” demands in December 2015 was that, in the Oberlin Conservatory, “seeing as how most jazz students are of the Africana community they should not be forced to take courses rooted in whiteness” of classical music.

In the New York Times, Krislov wrote: “American higher education is at a crossroads, as it was in the 1960s when college students were galvanized by the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.”

But I do not accept that anti-Zionist petitions or Africana demands for specific foods and segregated “safe spaces” in Oberlin buildings somehow are comparable to my classmates’ efforts in the 1960s civil rights movement and later protests against U.S. war policy in Vietnam. (On the campus of Kent State, one of Oberlin’s neighbors, U.S. National Guard troops shot and killed unarmed students during anti-war protests in May 1970.)

In spring of 2016, one student on the cusp of graduation said, “I’m going home, back to the ’hood of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.”

Marc Chafetz explained – in the New York Times – why that remark disturbed him: “I graduated 41 years ago…. Oberlin changed me profoundly. I found out how little I actually knew about the world, and it unleashed a hunger to learn that has never dissipated.”

No matter what identities students bring or what paths they follow afterward, higher education should involve them in exploration and intellectual discovery – and civil encounters with one another.

Ned Glick lives in Vancouver. His baccalaureate is from Oberlin College and his PhD is from Stanford. After teaching at the University of Chicago, he had University of British Columbia appointments in mathematics, in statistics and in the faculty of medicine. He retired to emeritus faculty status in 1992.

Posted on October 14, 2016October 27, 2016Author Ned GlickCategories Op-EdTags anti-Israel, antisemitism, consumerism, culture, free speech, identity politics, minority rights, university
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