The Hamas massacre in Israel has revealed that the the DEI norms embraced by most American universities don't include protecting Jewish students from intimidation. Every day I hear new stories from friends about their college kids being threatened, ostracized, and bullied, because they object to the glorification of Hamas terrorists by other students. A good friend of mine, for example, has had to hire a civil rights attorney because other students in his daughter's program have taken to referring to her as "the little Jew bitch," and the program's administrators have not done anything about it.
At my own school, George Mason University president Gregory Washington has championed a variety of expensive, time-intensive, DEI measures. The goal, he wrote in an email to the university community in July 2023, is to ensure that "every student, faculty, and staff member is welcomed and respected as a full equal in this community of learning." He has, unfortunately, fallen far short of that lofty goal with regard to Jewish GMU students and faculty.
Just two days after Hamas's genocidal rampage in southern Israel, Mason Students for Justice in Palestine published a statement endorsing the actions of the Hamas terrorists, whom they described as "reclaiming land and seizing settlements considered illegal and a violation of international laws."
