AMCHA study links academic boycotts of Israel to antisemitism in the US — Jerusalem Post

In the United States, a study by the AMCHA Initiative found a link between faculty support for academic boycotts of Israel and higher levels of recorded antisemitic activity on university campuses. This was reported by the Jerusalem Post, citing a chapter in the book Toward the Last Encampment: Campus Culture and the Jews Before and After October 7.

Findings of six studies

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the AMCHA Initiative, argues that faculty anti-Zionist activism was an important and insufficiently studied factor in antisemitism at US universities. The analysis is based on six empirical studies conducted over more than a decade.

Since 2013, AMCHA has compiled a nationwide database of faculty members who have publicly supported an academic boycott of Israel. The study used such support as an indicator of anti-Zionist views because the relevant statements can be verified and the boycott entails specific actions in the academic environment.

According to the authors, campuses with a larger number of academic boycott supporters recorded antisemitic activity more frequently. The authors also believe that this indicator more strongly predicted harm directed at Jewish students than the mere presence of a student anti-Zionist group.

Impact on departments and teaching

Ethnic studies departments employing at least one boycott supporter were about ten times more likely to organize events featuring speakers who support the boycott. For gender studies departments, this figure was about 12 times, and for Middle East studies, about five times.

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Campuses with five or more such faculty members were about seven times more likely to have departments that issued or endorsed anti-Zionist statements. The authors defined these as statements denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state or demonizing or delegitimizing Israel, Israelis, Zionism, or Zionists.

In courses taught by faculty who supported academic boycotts, the median share of required readings written by boycott supporters was about 78%. In courses taught by faculty who did not support boycotts, the figure was 17%.

The situation after October 7

After Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, individual faculty activism, according to AMCHA’s assessment, developed into organized networks through Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters. According to the study, universities that already had academic boycott supporters were significantly more likely to establish such chapters.

At institutions with Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups, the likelihood of physical attacks on Jewish students was more than seven times higher, according to the researchers’ calculations, while threats of violence were about 3.4 times more likely. The authors also noted that protests and encampments on such campuses lasted longer.