It’s come to this.
Fed up with the widespread, pernicious anti-Semitism at NYU, incoming freshman Ellen Schanzer has withdrawn her acceptance at the university in a blistering — and heartbreaking — letter:
An incoming college freshman, whose great-grandfather founded @nyuniversity’s music dept and was a professor there for many years, withdrew her acceptance to the university. There will be more like her until NYU shuts down rampant anti-Semitism on campus. pic.twitter.com/SkRjsW4FZA
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
What led to a young Jewish woman walking away from an education at such a prestigious institution as NYU, you ask? A thread on anti-Semitism at NYU… (1/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
Last year, members of NYU Students for Justice in Palestine burned an Israel flag during a celebration for Israel’s Independence Day. https://t.co/yRWgqM9PND (2/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
That same semester, more than 50 NYU student groups aligned themselves with the group that burned the flag and endorsed the BDS movement. https://t.co/nG4T5kbtUo (3/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
Emboldened by the relative inaction by the university, in December 2018 SJP pushes a resolution to end NYU’s Tel Aviv study abroad program. https://t.co/WVtBHPvh0f (4/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
Just days after this resolution passes, the Hillel building at NYU is forced to closed for security reasons following the discovery of anti-Semitic, threatening posts from an NYU student. The posts including the terms “nyjews” and “zionist kkkunts.” https://t.co/bG0INXa7zd (5/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
Recommended
In March 2019, half a dozen NYU departments cosponsor an on-campus event featuring Linda Sarsour. The event is held while many Jewish students are out of town for a conference and unable to defend against Sarsour’s blatant lies. https://t.co/jr2DjbA76N (6/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
On May 2, as Jews around the world (and on NYU’s campus) commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, NYU’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis ends its relationship with NYU Tel Aviv. https://t.co/poO3k2JFgC (7/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
Also earlier this month, Students for Justice in Palestine, an organized that less than a year ago burned an Israeli flag and saw its members arrested, received NYU’s Presidential Service Award. https://t.co/CFCB8CPvDx (8/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
When President Hamilton received pushback re: SJP receiving the award, his response was:
A. To revoke the award
B. To allow SJP to receive the awardHamilton chose B and himself did not attend the awards ceremony. Not quite a profile in courage. https://t.co/2Nph8CNk6C (9/?)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
And there you have it, my friends. The decision to turn down an acceptance to a prestigious university is a personal and difficult one. But it’s reflective of the increasingly anti-Semitic climate that NYU has done relatively little to stop over the last year. (10/10)
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 22, 2019
You know, I thought I was done yesterday. But NYU continues to find ways to make Jewish students feel unwelcome. At graduation yesterday, commencement speaker Steven Thrasher said the following (h/t @J_Insider): pic.twitter.com/OBwQcWZgEN
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) May 23, 2019
.@nyuniversity now has openly anti-Israel graduation speeches – to applause..
Only the latest in a year of horrible hate.
This guy starts teaching journalism next month.https://t.co/H64lIamUqz@melissaeweiss @AndrewPessin pic.twitter.com/B6iJKeW3Pz
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) May 23, 2019
Good Lord.
I thought hiring Duca and Lavin to teach journalism was bad. What a dumpster fire. https://t.co/9aXoFa55VR
— BT (@back_ttys) May 24, 2019
That’s putting it mildly. Universities like NYU love to hold themselves up as safe spaces, but they’re anything but for Jewish students.
Wow. And good for her. When a university president sits and applauds a call for antisemitism on his campus, the school has a major problem—you know it’s not a few kids or teachers. At many such schools, it’s a hate factory. https://t.co/NekLCXPHNx
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
There’s a certain influential strain of the left—it’s mainstream, you’ll read it at the Atlantic, NY Times, WaPo, Vox, TNR—that makes it a habit to snidely dismiss antisemitism on campus as so much hysteria. Such ppl are not just comfortable with antisemitism; they often share it
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
So you see no reaction from these publications when Marc Lamont Hill makes erasure of Jewish history and peoplehood his academic project, or when the NYU president is clapping like a goddamned emptyheaded Bavarian seal as a graduation ceremony turns into a beer-hall Jew-hatefest.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
It’s the same folks who come out here every time Tlaib or Omar says something antisemitic and ignore the antisemitic comment and tell the Jews they’re overreacting.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
It’s couched in “anti-racism” which is extraordinarily disrespectful to Ethiopian Jews and other groups for whom Israel’s racial and ethnic diversity has been a godsend.
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) May 24, 2019
Yup—one side says “Jews are white and therefore to blame for antisemitism” and the other says “Jews are not white and therefore don’t belong.”
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
There is no serious argument—none—that American academia isn’t in full-blown antisemitic crisis, and anyone who argues otherwise is consciously enabling it.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
One reason this is so poisonous is that Jews once upon a time found refuge in academia. When it was hard to find a job at a private university, state schools were there to give us teaching opportunities. Now there is no difference between private and state-sponsored schools.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
Minorities prize educational opportunities as a path to leveling the playing field. When you attack a minority en masse–as the university system is currently doing to Jews, just as it has in the past–you are attempting to dismantle a way for minority groups to succeed.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
It's an attempt to permanently disadvantage minorities. That is what American higher education is doing now, what it has done in the past, what it will do in the future, if NYU president's shocking display of public enthusiasm for antisemitism is any indication. And it is.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2019
How many more Ellen Schanzers must stand up before universities finally take action to rid themselves of anti-Semitism?
We need more people like Ellen—and blessedly, history shows us that when brave people like her stand up and do the right thing despite personal loss, many others will be inspired to follow in her footsteps.
College administrators should take note. https://t.co/8hRq736tEs
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) May 24, 2019