Brooklyn College Controversy: Orthodox students and America’s changing campus

Despite protests and outrage from Jewish students, community members and politicians, Brooklyn College hosted a BDS event, a group promoting boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel , last Thursday. The event was officially endorsed by the college’s political science faculty. Despite the controversy, the show went on, and the endorsement remained. And so does a question. If a college department officially sanctions speakers who are on record calling for the elimination of the Jewish State, can a clearly identifiable Jewish student expect to be treated fairly? Could this jeopardize an Orthodox student’s academic career?

“Students have expressed fears about going to political science classes,” says Rabbi Reuven Boshnack, 37, the Orthodox Union’s Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) rabbi at Brooklyn College. “Some have stopped attending; some will drop the courses. The students expressed that they feel alienated by the college and administration.”

Brooklyn College is one of 16 campuses across the United States and Canada where JLIC rabbinical couples, as part of the Hillel office professional team, serve as Jewish educators, role models and community organizers on campus, providing a Torah haven for Orthodox Jewish students on campus.

Rutgers University faced a similar situation last year. According to Rabbi Akiva Dovid Weiss, 33, JLIC rabbi at Rutgers, an anti-Israel campus group called BAKA, affiliated with the Students for Justice in Palestine, ran an event on Holocaust Remembrance Day called “Never Again for Anyone,” comparing the Palestinians to the Jews in Europe under the Nazis.

However, in Rutgers’ case, no particular university department gave the event its explicit stamp of approval, raising the question: Could last week’s Brooklyn College faculty-endorsed event set a new precedent?