EXCLUSIVE — The AMCHA Initiative unveiled a new rating system on Wednesday that ranks schools by the presence of anti-Israel “faculty abuse” on campus. Twenty of the 30 worst offending schools are among the top 60 colleges in terms of Jewish populations.
The anti-Zionist faculty barometer was launched as part of a national campaign against Faculty for Justice in Palestine after research showed the presence of FJP on campus strongly correlates with antisemitic assaults and harassment.
“While much attention has been paid to the antisemitic behavior of anti-Zionist students and student groups, the enormous influence of anti-Zionist faculty on campus climate is often overlooked,” AMCHA co-founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin told the Washington Examiner. “Yet, AMCHA Initiative’s research indicates faculty might be the most determinative variable when it comes to attacks on Jewish students.”
“For all stakeholders concerned about campus antisemitism, the contribution of faculty must not be overlooked or underestimated,” she added, arguing that faculty “abuse power” to inject anti-Israel views into the classroom, which, in turn, fans the flames of antisemitism, as evidenced by the 2500% increase in physical assaults and 900% increase in violent threats to Jewish students following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack.
The first-of-its-kind barometer ranks 725 schools nationwide and puts them into one of six categories: 5 (Extreme), 4 (Severe), 3 (Significant), 2 (Moderate), 1 (Minimal), and 0 (Negligible). Many of the most elite universities in the country landed toward the top, with all but one Ivy League school receiving extreme, severe, or significant ratings. Only Cornell received less.
In total, 30 schools received extreme ratings, 33 received severe, 58 received significant, 78 received moderate, 42 received minimal, and 484 received negligible. At the very top of the list is New York University, which has 148 faculty members in support of academic boycotts against Israel. Between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024, the school’s FJP chapter had 44 events and anti-Israel statements.
The barometer uses four measures to rate and rank schools: The presence of an FJP chapter, the number of faculty members who support boycott, divest, and sanctions initiatives against Israel, the presence of departments that have issued statements committing to an anti-Israel stance, as well as the number of events sponsored and statements authored by the school’s FJP-affiliated chapter.
The Ivy League school with the highest grade is Columbia University. It has the third-highest grade in the nation, with 77 faculty boycotters and 27 combined FJP events and statements. Five of its departments have committed to an anti-Israel stance. In addition to Columbia, both Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania received extreme grades. Brown University and Dartmouth University received severe grades, Harvard University and Princeton University received significant grades, and Cornell received a moderate grade.
UPenn has seen some of the most extreme faculty involvement in anti-Israel demonstrations, apart from the measures used to rank schools in the AMCHA Initiative’s barometer. Penn professors mobilized students and outside agitators to participate in the school’s encampment, provided material support for protesters by transporting supplies and charging batteries, and formed a human barricade on May 10 to disrupt police while chanting slogans comparing cops to the Ku Klux Klan for arresting protesters. Approximately 86 Penn faculty members also staged a January “die-in” protest, blocking a main school building, in violation of the university code.
Two Rutgers University campuses also landed in the top 30 biggest hotbeds for anti-Israel faculty activity, as did seven University of California schools and four City University of New York schools.
Rossman-Benjamin said that from her research and experience, the departments with the highest prevalence of anti-Israel faculty include ethnic studies, feminist studies, and Middle East studies. “Essentially all departments that have fashioned the core mission of their disciplines to include an assault on the Jewish state and its on-campus supporters, so that they can say ‘our core mission compelled us to say or do this.’”
She previously shared photos of the ethnic studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she is a faculty member. The doors of several of her colleagues were littered with what she called “unprofessional [anti-Israel] propaganda.” UCSC is ranked fourth in anti-Israel faculty activity out of 725 schools, according to the barometer.
According to a recent AMCHA report, physical attacks on Jewish students are more than seven times more likely at college campuses with FJP chapters present, while threats of violence and death against Jewish students are more than three times more likely, and student demands for academic boycotts of Israeli faculty are nearly 11 times more likely.
As part of AMCHA’s national campaign against the anti-Israel faculty group, a coalition of over 120 civil rights and religious organizations sent a letter to the presidents of 170 universities with a Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter. AMCHA also released two educational videos: One on “the dangers of FJP” and another on “the harms of academic BDS.”
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to remove federal funding and accreditation from schools fostering antisemitic activity. “We will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers,” he said.
Jewish groups spent the summer preparing to launch complaints and lawsuits against schools violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Biden administration has launched well over 100 Title VI investigations into universities and school districts around the country, with most relating to antisemitic conduct, but has not removed funding or accreditation from any school found to have violated Jewish students’ civil rights.
Frederick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that Trump will likely put enormous pressure on schools being investigated over such claims to settle during his second administration.
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Rossman-Benjamin said AMCHA urges stakeholders, parents, students, and prospective students to use the new barometer to assess the campus climate for Jewish students when determining whether to donate or enroll at the school. For students already enrolled, it can help “decide which classes to take or which majors to pursue” when paired with other information about antisemitic activity not specific to faculty.
“And we hope university administrators also use the barometer to understand how prevalent anti-Zionist faculty misconduct is and take meaningful steps to prevent it,” she added. “This abuse of power, and the way in which it is serving to fuel antisemitism on campus, and specifically dangerous attacks on Jewish students, must stop.”
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
