Confronting campus antisemitism

Scholars explored antisemitism through history and its intersection with universities in a wide-ranging conference May 14 at Harvard’s Enterprise Research Center. 

Universities reflect movements and biases in broader society, speakers noted — a reality that helps explain antisemitism on campus but doesn’t provide a clear roadmap for countering it. Even so, they said, it’s important that higher ed leaders confront the issue in the strongest terms. The symposium was seen as a key step along those lines.

“Academic conferences don’t solve things ordinarily: That’s not their function.” said Noah Feldman, Harvard’s Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor, who introduced the event. “The function of an academic conference is to explore, study, and seek to get a better understanding. Our objective — always in this University — should be to pursue the truth and to do that in an open-minded way that welcomes all different points of view and perspectives.” 

Read more in the Harvard Gazette