The Institute for Jewish and Community Research

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism in America’s Educational Systems is a research and action initiative of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research.

The mission of this initiative is to help protect the Jewish community from the threats of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism in America’s educational systems. The research is designed to help create strategies and programs to address bias in higher education and K-12 classrooms. Both anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism are experiencing a dramatic rise, and the line between the two is blurring more. America’s educational systems have become key institutions in the anti-Israel campaign, from primary grades through graduate school.

Research Documents Prejudice

Our research has documented a pervasive anti-Israel and growing anti-Semitic bias and the expression of that bias throughout our educational systems. Jews and Israel are portrayed negatively in textbooks. Anti-Semitic posters appear on campus. The campaign for colleges to divest their investments from Israel (drawing parallels to apartheid South Africa) is spreading. Anti-Israelism has become "politically correct" on many campuses.

The initiative to combat anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism in America’s educational system has three functions:

1. Document anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism through research- This includes surveys of faculty and students and studies of religious prejudice. The extent of faculty bias, lack of administrative controls, using the classroom for political propaganda, and the blatant anti-Semitism in textbooks all need to be documented on an ongoing basis through credible research.

2. Expose anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism- More sunlight on what is happening on college campuses in terms of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism is critical. We use methods such as electronic, print and broadcast media, publications, conferences, and press releases to disseminate the results of our research.

3. Educate important decision makers - We inform political leaders at both the state and federal levels, university trustees, K-12 boards of education, and state education committees. We propose federal, administrative and legislative solutions.

Background of the Initiative

Anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in America’s Educational Systems is a research initiative of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. The purpose of the initiative is to document and to address rising levels of hostility toward Jews and Israel in both higher education and K-12 classrooms. This project includes extensive surveys of college faculty and students. The Institute’s work identifies the root causes that lead to rising levels of intolerance on American college campuses. In the public elementary and secondary systems, history textbooks are filled with misrepresentations about Jews and Israel. The Institute’s work has provided essential data and analysis for policy makers, the public, and the media.

Jews, it is often said, are "the canary in the coal mine of civilization," and as such the problems experienced by Jews in America's contemporary educational systems reflect a serious problem for American society as a whole. By exposing anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism on college campuses and in primary and secondary textbooks, we simultaneously reveal anti-intellectualism and a negative political influence in America's educational systems.

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism in Higher Eduacation

The Uncivil University (IJCR, 2005)
Gary A. Tobin, Aryeh K. Weinberg & Jenna Ferer

The Institute for Jewish & Community Research’s study of American college faculty offers the reader a unique portrait of today’s academy. It illustrates the existence of a dominant political ideology on campus that encompasses views of American foreign, domestic, and trade policies. The majority of faculty are bound by a set of beliefs that could compromise the core mission of the academy to provide unbiased teaching and scholarship. The authors call for the academy to embrace its own values and tenets. They urge all stakeholders in higher education to ensure that the truest purposes of the university are protected against the paralysis of an entrenched political monoculture. This book is intended for anyone concerned with the future of higher education and its mission to be an open marketplace of ideas.
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The Uncivil University: Revised Edition (Lexington Books, 2009)
Gary A. Tobin, Aryeh K. Weinberg & Jenna Ferer

The first printing of the UnCivil University was well received. The demand for the book exceeded initial inventory. Moreover, new developments provide data for additions to the book. We released an updated version of the UnCivil University rather than a second printing.

The Revised Edition of the UnCivil University includes a new introduction by Kenneth L. Marcus, former staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, former assistant secretary of Civil Rights at the Department of Education, current Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America and Visiting Professor of Public Affairs at Baruch College School of Public Affairs, and Director, Initiative to Combat Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism in America’s Educational Systems.

A new conclusion has been added that takes a broader look at the role of the campus in a global anti-Israel campaign that reaches from the ground in the Middle East to the United Nations.

An epilogue revisits themes in the book and explores positive developments as well as the Jewish communal response to anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in higher education.

Studies on the Political and Religious Attitudes and Beliefs of College Faculty

The Institute for Jewish & Community Research conducted two major surveys of U.S. college faculty in 2005 and 2007. The data offer the most comprehensive view of faculty attitudes ever assembled. Two publications have been released analyzing the data and several more are in progress.

Profiles of the American University Volume I: Political Beliefs & Behavior of College Faculty (IJCR, 2006)
Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K. Weinberg

Profiles of the American University Volume II: Religious Beliefs & Behavior of College Faculty (IJCR, 2006)
Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K. Weinberg

The religious identity, beliefs, and behavior of college faculty in the United States are complex. Faculty are far more religious than many might believe, but still much less religious than the American public. Their religious beliefs are often intertwined with political ideology. Moreover, faculty are not without their religious prejudices – they are less tolerant of some religious groups than others. This volume provides a detailed profile of faculty religious attitudes and practices, and how they feel about others’ religions as well. The Religious Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty examines the intersection of two of the most important institutions in American life: religion and higher education.
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Faculty Views on Israel and the Middle East (IJCR, forthcoming)

The third book in the series, Profiles of the American University, Faculty Views on Israel and the Middle East, is based on the second survey of faculty. The survey re-posited a number of questions from the previous survey as well as introduced new questions about Israel and the Middle East and faculty views on academic roles and ethics.

A matrix has been developed to identify the most strident critics of Israel and Jews that indicates a minority of highly active anti-Israel faculty. Anti-Israel activism is not faculty-wide. But a small group of faculty are able to dominate the debate with anti-Israel rhetoric and behavior.

Faculty Views on the Middle East and Israel will be released in the Fall of 2009.

The Social and Political Culture of Higher Education (IJCR, forthcoming)

The second survey of faculty asks a number of questions about the role and purpose of the professoriate and academia in general. The data reveals that liberal activists dominate the public sphere of higher education. This monograph shows that faculty have embraced a system that they fear the most – limitations on free speech in the public sphere. They have adopted a system that excludes others with diverse ideas and made certain views uncomfortable and even unacceptable to discuss.

The Social and Political Culture of Higher Education will be released in the Fall of 2009.

Studies on the Political and Religious Attitudes and Beliefs of College Students

We are conducting a survey that will sample undergraduates to measure student experiences with prejudice. This study will examine the experiences of college and universities students in regards to religious, political and other forms of discrimination. It will also document attitudes about Israel and the Middle-East, free enterprise, and religious identity.

Anti-Israel Bias and Misrepresentation of Jews in K-12 Textbooks

The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion (Lexington Books, 2008)
Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra

School textbooks in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds are filled with anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda. Most readers will be shocked to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America’s elementary and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Jews, Judaism and Israel. American textbooks teach that "there is no record of any important Jewish contribution to the sciences." (World Civilizations"Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." (The World, Scott Foresman/Pearson).

The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion exposes the poor scholarship and untruths in textbooks about Jews and Israel. The problems uncovered in this groundbreaking analysis illustrate the need for reform in the way textbooks are developed, written, marketed, and distributed. The Trouble with Textbooks shows what can go terribly wrong in discussing religion, geography, culture, or history – and in this case – all of them.

The Trouble With Textbooks was released in September 2008. It has received extensive media coverage, especially the critical, skeptical treatment of Jewish and Christian beliefs as opposed to Muslim beliefs, which are described as historical fact.
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The Legal Rights of Jewish Students as a Religious Minority

Some progress toward official recognition of Jewish students’ rights under civil rights legislation has been made. This position will be clearly laid out and defended in a legal papers, articles and books authored by Kenneth L. Marcus.

Anti-Semitism and Civil Rights Policy

This book, which is now in preparation, will demonstrate that Jewish students have important civil rights which should be, but are not, currently protected by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The book will also explore the problem of anti-Semitic harassment as it has developed on American campuses. It will draw on some of the academic articles described below.

Jurisprudence of the New Anti-Semitism

This academic law review article, published in Spring 2009 by the Wake Forest University Law Review, demonstrates the legal harm or wrongfulness of anti-Semitic harassment in higher education. In particular, it explains why some anti-Zionist activity rises to the level of legal actionable behavior. This article was the most frequently downloaded Higher Education Law article in the authoritative Social Science Research Network for the period in which it was initially posted.
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Anti-Semitism and Racism

This 2009 presentation at Yale University explores the various theories under which anti-Semitism claims may be considered by OCR or a reviewing court. Further, it demonstrates that some forms of anti-Semitism may be actionable under any of these theories. Both the written paper and a videotape of the oral presentation remain available on Yale’s website, and a revised version will be published in an edited volume published by Yale University Press.
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The Second Mutation: Israel and Political Anti-Semitism

This short article, intended for a general audience, describes the evolution of anti-Semitism from religious to racial to political, describing the dangers of the new anti-Semitism on American college campuses. It was originally published in 2008 in the Jewish Policy Center’s inFocus magazine and later republished in the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East’s Faculty Forum.
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Privileging and Protecting Schoolhouse Religion

This 2008 law review article, published in the Journal of Law & Education, makes the case for legislation to prohibit religious discrimination in education. The article is based on an invited presentation delivered at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools for a joint panel of the Law & Religion and Law & Education sections.

To what extent does federal law protect public school students from religious discrimination? Intuitively, one would expect children victimized by religious hate, bias, and other discrimination to enjoy the apex of protections afforded under our constitutional system.

Structurally, they are victimized at the convergence of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, denied not only the Constitution's "first freedom" but also the very interest in equal educational opportunity that has been constitutionally preeminent since Brown v. Board of Education.

Moreover, school-age children may be peculiarly vulnerable to the sting of hate and bias incidents, so it is especially important to provide them with the full extent of constitutional support. Nevertheless, students of faith have not always received a level of protection commensurate to the importance of the interests at stake.

Our research demontrates that equal opportunity for religious minority students requires, in practical terms, administratively enforced, statutory anti-discrimination protections and reasonable accommodations for student religious needs.
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