Robert Sklar
Editor, Detroit JN
American universities are precious as centers of higher education. Young people of all nationalities study together. Most instructors are intellectually honest and good scholars whose goal is the pursuit of knowledge. Most students want to learn and gain the tools to succeed in life.
But despite the good intentions and positive mission of the university experience, a growing problem pulsates on many campuses: anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism masquerading as academic freedom and free speech. Antagonism trumps intelligent conversation in this setting.
So says Aryeh Weinberg. And he should know. He and his team of researchers have studied the politics and propaganda in American education since 2001. Their findings should shake every American.
Weinberg is a fellow at the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank. He and Institute director Gary Tobin co-authored the 2005 book The UnCivil University. The Institute gave key testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) in 2005 on the subject of campus incivility – a subversive state ripe for sowing seeds of Jewish and Israel hatred.
“More and more,” says Weinberg, “instead of reasoned debate on campus, we have shrill yelling and sloganeering. Learning based on facts is discarded in favor of politicized polemics. Open-minded discussion falls victim to anger, accusations and vilification of those with whom one disagrees.” CONTINUE
