A video from August of 2024 of University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) emerita Professor Vivian Burt explaining her resignation at a Regents meeting from her position due to anti-Semitism is going viral, and she is being mistakenly hailed as a hero by many who are sharing or commenting on the remarks. As a fellow Zionist and an admirer of her views and public statements toward Israel, I am saddened and disappointed by her decision to walk away from her lifelong project, for she essentially ceded ground to intense and dangerous hate. Professor Burt could have held the line and continued teaching.
Professor Burt is the founder of the Women’s Life Center, a nationally recognized program that she established three decades ago to “care for patients with perinatal depression,” and shared that she left her center because she believes that she is “no longer welcome in the center I created and loved.” Burt argues that “because I joined a Jewish faculty resilience group, signed letters, spoke at these very Regent’s meetings” about anti-Semitic indoctrination, she has been subjected to intense anti-Semitism and publicly shared that she has been threatened with academic boycotts, isolated as a Zionist, and was threatened that her long career was at an end. She lamented that “faculty did nothing to support me” and asked that the school’s Regents act so that she can return to training students.
I have no reason to believe that this account is untrue or even exaggerated; UCLA has been one of the most anti-Semitic and dangerous colleges since the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.
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However, this is not the time to walk away from a fight, stop training students, and announce defeat—that is exactly what the anti-Semites want to see happen. While Jewish thought often takes the position from Proverbs 20:3 that a wise person actively chooses to avoid arguments and conflicts, as engaging in quarrels is often seen as a sign of poor judgment, what is going on today is far more existential. This is not a simple quarrel or a small matter; there is an organized and well-funded movement to destroy Zionism and the Jewish community on campuses nationwide, and those in the Jewish community who can hold the line and push back must do exactly that.
Resignation hands a win to those who are calling for an intifada, and it is not the right decision whatsoever.
The fact of the matter is that in today’s climate, almost no institutions of higher education are supportive or welcoming of Zionist professors. But professors leaving their positions in academia is not the solution; it is exactly what protesters hope will happen. Stepping away from higher education is a surrender to anti-Semitism and the larger academic and Jewish communities do not benefit from such behavior.
While I have never met Professor Burt and cannot fully understand the difficulties that she has faced at UCLA, in my own time at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC)—a school with a storied history of anti-Semitism—I have been harassed and my family and livelihood have been threatened for years. Teaching at SLC is deeply unpleasant, and, in the past semester, I have been boycotted, assaulted, and harassed for being a Zionist Jew, and, like Burt, the faculty did nothing to support me.
However, rather than leave and hope that others will act to stop this madness so that I can teach, I have remained on faculty because my presence on campus shows that the illiberal anti-Semites have not won. I can help students who are interested in hearing a multitude of ideas and Jewish students on campus who feel profoundly unwelcome, unsafe and suffering and living in fear. Many Sarah Lawrence faculty, administrators, and student protesters would be happy if I no longer taught there. The school is rightly being investigated for a Title VI violation by the Department of Education. I have been treated very poorly for being a Jew, and this is exactly why resignation is not what I or any other professor should do. We should not just turn over this ground and walk away from our students.
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Higher education needs Zionist and Jewish faculty on campus more than ever. Despite the hostility toward Jews on campus, Jewish professors can offer Jewish students community and solidarity, far above what the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) bureaucracy was intended to do. Jewish students desperately need to know that they are not alone. And when an openly Jewish academic who is a supporter of Israel walks away from a university, as is the case of Professor Burt and many others, it is further detrimental to Jewish students on campus who desperately need the support of faculty right now.
While Jewish and Zionist faculty can’t fully stop anti-Semitic ideas from spreading on campuses or stop students and faculty from protesting, staying employed, remaining on campus, and teaching has become an act of defiance. Across the country, Jews are increasingly unwelcomed worldwide and blamed for societal issues. Those of us with tenure and the security to be openly Jewish must stand firm—resignation is the easy way out. Our presence on campus and our refusal to deny Israel’s right to exist frustrates anti-Semites and offers security to Jewish students while holding the administration accountable.
Leaving the anti-Semitic environment in higher education is a choice some may make, but more faculty must rise to the challenge and do their jobs as professors with dignity and professionalism. Jewish continuity depends on those who stand up to hate and refuse to bend to illiberalism. Professor Burt’s resignation is not the solution—it encourages further threats against Jews and emboldens anti-Semitism, ultimately abandoning the students who need our support the most.
Image of “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Brown University by Kenneth C. Zirkel on Wikimedia Commons
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
