Since October 7, we’ve seen some rhetoric at anti-war protests cross the line into ugly stereotyping, hateful vitriol on social media and violent threats against Jewish students. It’s true that too many protesters have embraced antisemitic tropes or conflated the government of Israel with Jewish people around the world.

But we cannot give up on the colleges and universities our students call home. We have no common cause with those who want to discredit or defund higher education. Protecting education, civil rights and open dialogue is vital to our children’s and grandchildren’s future and to the ability of Jewish students to succeed and thrive.

By threatening to withhold federal funds from universities that don’t scrap their DEI programs, the Trump Administration is threatening the future of Holocaust education and combating antisemitism on campus.

They seem determined to sacrifice resources that keep Jewish students safe at the altar of their culture war, and we – Jewish Americans – cannot allow it.

Unlike what some would have you believe, the vast majority of students aren’t Hamas-aligned radicals. They’re young people whose perspectives may differ from ours, but who must be welcome as long as they voice them respectfully.

By attacking higher education, Trump and his allies are threatening to abandon the most effective tools the government has to fight antisemitism in all its forms – and I won’t stand idly by while they do it.

Sincerely,
The undersigned