colleges at war on jewish students

Jewish students have a right to feel safe on campus

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It all started when I took out some anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) information sheets at a Brooklyn College-sponsored event last year that featured Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement. I planned to challenge Barghouti by taking notes as he spoke and asking questions during the Q&A period, but I never got the chance to participate.

A member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the event’s main organizer, had other plans. He had the view that this wasn’t the time or place to voice opposition to SJP’s opposition to Israel, so I should either hand over my sheets or be kicked out. When I refused, he had City University of New York security officials escort me and two other yarmulke-clad students out of the event, no questions asked.

The following week, my name was synonymous with “First Amendment oppression.” My phone rang incessantly. Politicians wanted to speak to me and lawyers flooded my inbox with requests to advocate for my legal rights.

Yet I was a college senior. I should have been applying to graduate schools, finishing my honors thesis, and interviewing for jobs, not vetting law firms, bonding with politicians, and answering reporters. I was elbow deep in a controversy that was much bigger than myself, and while I began to realize that indeed a gross constitutional violation had been committed, I didn’t know enough to understand what I was entitled to and what consequences the courts could enforce against the violators.

Enter the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. Like in my case, students are often unfamiliar with their rights. This ignorance can lead academic institutions to unlawfully restrict students. Ironically, academia should be the place where students feel safest to speak their minds. The Brandeis Center assisted me and the two other students, and Brooklyn College eventually apologized. The apology wasn’t personally important to me. But it was crucial to know that other students wouldn’t have to experience what I did.

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