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This week, Stanford junior and Free Press intern Julia Steinberg testified before Congress about rising antisemitism on college campuses. Her verdict? The hate didn’t magically materialize on October 7th. Steinberg traces rampant anti-Israeli discrimination to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ideologies that “pit groups of students against each other.” The speech—hard-hitting and informative—excerpted below.
It shouldn’t be shocking that a generation that has been trained to identify and slot people based on their identities alone and who are taught that violence against oppressors can be a righteous, healing force—and yes, we are taught that—take to the streets to shout these [antisemitic] lessons. …
I go to Stanford, and I want to tell you what it’s been like both before and after October 7.
For my freshman and sophomore years, I lived in the dorm with the only kosher dining hall on campus. Last winter, a Jewish student in my dorm found that a portrait of Hitler had been drawn on his door. They never found the perpetrator. Soon after, swastikas were carved into bathrooms in the main quad. In a Great Books class I took my freshman year, we had a weeklong unit on the Holocaust. That week, a student gave a presentation on how Zionism is a new Nazism and how Israelis are the new Nazis.
The day of October 7, Stanford students hung banners celebrating the massacre. On October 8th, before the IDF had even responded, new banners were strung up around campus, saying, “The illusion of Israel is burning” and “By any means necessary.” Some of my classmates, people I live with and learn with, believe that the worst forms of barbarism are justified if they are against Jews. My fellow students posted on their Instagram stories, “Settlers are not civilians” and, quote, “Every martyr that fought today and in every moment against the occupation is so deep in my heart.” A Jewish girl in my hall told me that her roommate hasn’t talked with her since the attacks.
In the weeks since then at Stanford, an instructor in a mandatory class called Civil, Liberal, and Global Education asked Jewish and Israeli students to identify themselves and then stand in a corner. He said, “This is what Israel does to the Palestinians.” (1:46–3:25)
I’m 21 years old and Jewish. Apparently, 48% of my peers want people like me dead. It does not have to be like this. Reforms are possible and necessary. Lots of students say that the DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—bureaucracy can adapt to protect Jews, too. But the answer is not for Jews to try to fit into the DEI caste system, to beg for a higher rank in the new ladder of victimhood. That is a losing strategy, not just for Jewish dignity but for the values we hold as Jews and Americans.
What can we do? Return to American values. We are not being properly educated if our schools seek to pit groups of students against each other. We need education that teaches about the world in all of its historical complexity, not indoctrination in slogans that say everybody is part of a group that is either all good or all bad. We need an education system that values knowledge, not that teaches millions of children to parrot propaganda lines.
You may think that I am exaggerating. I invite you all to come visit me at Stanford. Come with me to my classes. Sit next to me in the dining hall. Go to the protests and the teach-ins. You’ll see that, if anything, I’m understating the situation. My Jewish parents raised me to know what is right and what is wrong. We honor and believe in the rule of law, free speech, and the belief that everyone is equal because we are all created in the image of God. Those aren’t just Jewish values. They are American values. (4:18–5:34)
Watch the whole thing here.
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