On December 9, Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, announced his resignation. But her departure did not end the "anti-Semitic" turmoil in American universities.
After the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the "flames of war" soon spread to many colleges and universities in the United States. The students were quickly divided into two camps, "pro-Israel" and "pro-Pakistan", and they confronted each other tensely during the demonstrations on campus. Demonstrations in some schools have even escalated into violence. An Israeli student at Columbia University had his finger broken. Faculty members at Yale and Stanford have also been charged and suspended for pro-Palestinian statements or suspected acts against Jewish students. Recently, the presidents of three well-known universities in the United States have also been caught in an "anti-Semitic" storm, they are Elizabeth Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, and Sally Kornbruth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The trigger for the turmoil was the controversy caused by the statements of the three presidents when they appeared at a hearing in the House of Representatives of the US Congress on the 5th. The hearing, which lasted more than five hours on the state of antisemitism in American universities, lasted more than five hours. When asked whether the vehemently anti-Semitic remarks violated campus rules, the three principals declined to give a direct answer. They all expressed their abhorrence of antisemitism, but refused to list antisemitic speech as a violation of campus norms. This matter immediately attracted ** attention. Both the presidents of Penn and Harvard subsequently apologized, but failed to appease the naysayers.
On December 8, 74 members of Congress sent a joint letter asking the three principals**. The day after the joint letter was issued, University of Pennsylvania President Magill announced his resignation under pressure.
In fact, this turmoil is a microcosm of the "tearing" of the United States from political circles, educational circles, and even the whole society.
Of the 74 members of Congress who signed the letter, 71 are Republicans and only three are Democrats. This reflects the very different attitudes of the two parties towards Jews in the United States. The Republican Party is fully pro-Jewish because its supporters are predominantly American Protestants, and for religious reasons, they are fanatical supporters of Jewish OrthodoxyMoreover, the Republican Party has long viewed Islamic extremism as the number one threat to the United States. The Democratic Party, as a left-wing party, is opposed to Hamas, but it also tends to sympathize with Palestine.
In the face of the joint letter, the responses of the three universities were also different. Penn President Magill and Board Chair Bock both resigned. Harvard University remained silent, while MIT chose to stand up for the president. But it's unclear how long this support will last, as the school's donors have been under constant pressure and even threatened to withdraw their donations. After all, Magill's resignation was partly due to such pressure, when Penn alumnus and Wall Street magnate Ross Stevens threatened to cancel a huge gift worth about $100 million if Magill did not resign.
It is worth noting the generational divide that is forming in American society. "Wall Street**" recently published an article pointing out that the political awakening of the younger generation in the United States is exacerbating campus turmoil, and they tend to see the conflict as the resistance of the oppressed against the oppressor, and even launched a pro-Palestinian ** wave that swept the university campuses across the United States, which shocked their parents and grandparents. According to data from Gallup, a US polling agency, on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, the older generation born before 1965 in the United States is very active and continues to support Israel, but the "millennials" born between 1980 and 2000 have plummeted their support for Israel, far below their sympathy for Palestine.
Text丨Yangcheng Evening News Weekend Special Chief Writer Xie Ming.