The Trump Effect: Reflections On How Academic Life Has Improved For A Jewish Professor

On October 10, 2023 — conscionable 3 days aft Hamas perpetrated nan largest bloodletting of Jews since nan Holocaust — I was preparing to thatch my evening postgraduate seminar astatine Northeastern University connected coercion and counterterrorism, erstwhile a alien accosted maine successful nan hallway by my office. 

Wearing a keffiyeh, he pressed a flier into my manus to be a "vigil" successful Cambridge advocating Palestinian resistance. I softly turned around, put nan flier successful my agency and headed disconnected to class, wherever I spotted nan aforesaid intifada-enthusiast seated among my students. 

I politely asked him to time off truthful I could commencement school astir world information arsenic I had astatine Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins and Northeastern for nan past decade. The people only met erstwhile a week, and I was eager to commence my instruction plan. But nan intruder refused to leave, cutting into people time. He told maine that he’s a student astatine nan assemblage and needed to guarantee that my course, successful which he was not enrolled, aligned pinch his anti-Israel views. After astir 15 minutes of unsuccessfully negotiating pinch him to leave, he started pacing astir nan classroom, giving a diatribe against Israel while encouraging nan shocked students enrolled successful nan people to locomotion retired of my people to be nan anti-Israel rally crossed municipality successful Cambridge.

THE FORGOTTEN AMERICANS OF HAMAS' TERRORIST MASSACRE ON OCTOBER 7TH

Anti-Israel protesters astatine Northeastern University. (Photo by Anibal Martel/Anadolu via Getty Images)

I was not nan only Jewish module personnel whom nan anti-Israel activistic targeted to restrict world state astatine my school. Significantly, neither of america was school astir thing related to nan Israeli-Palestinian conflict; my module that time happened to beryllium connected nan taxable of right-wing extremism. No, my workfellow and I were targeted for being Jewish faculty. 

Both of america submitted abstracted general complaints to nan Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR). But OSCCR refused to appraise maine astir nan result of my complaint. Later successful nan term, I discovered that my assemblage intelligibly did not subject nan student capable because my telephone blew up pinch alerts from friends that nan activistic was getting escorted retired of nan graduation ceremonial by constabulary for making a immense segment pinch clone humor to nan scary of each nan graduating students and their families.

When I thrust to school, I often springiness my mother a call. And she often asks maine whether there’s immoderate much madness connected campus. What she intends to inquire is whether location are immoderate much disruptions from extremist students connected campus. But this is simply a communal misperception astir nan level of problems Jewish module person faced successful American higher education, which precede the October 7 violent massacre and resultant "global intifada" connected assemblage campuses nationwide. 

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Anti-Israel protesters successful downtown Boston stitchery successful support of nan campy successful Harvard Yard for nan Israeli onslaught connected Gaza, connected April 25, 2024 astatine Northeastern University successful Boston. (Photo by Anibal Martel/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Such incidents are understandably highly salient successful nan news. The bigger problem for me, though, was not nan intifada-supporting student's theatrics, but that nan assemblage management did not get my back. The management ne'er checked successful pinch maine aliases my students aft nan people was taken hostage by an extremist; nan assemblage refused to proviso immoderate information to my classes moreover aft being targeted; and nan assemblage grounded to sufficiently reside nan known student extremist, starring to embarrassment erstwhile nan spoiled graduation ceremonial became a nationalist news story.

This is really universities crossed nan state person dealt pinch nan field intifadas against Jewish students and module — by doing adjacent to nothing.

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President Donald Trump speaks during a FIFA task unit gathering successful nan East Room of nan White House connected Tuesday, May 6, 2025 successful Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

That is until Donald Trump was re-elected arsenic president. Ever since, there’s been a palpable consciousness that antisemitism and associated extremism will beryllium punished if not from nan universities, past by nan government. Since his re-election, location person been nary intifada-intruders successful my classroom. And I cognize that if location are, they will beryllium handled much earnestly by nan administration. And for nan first clip successful my decade astatine Northeastern arsenic a professor, my important work to Jewish students arsenic nan module advisor to Chabad and Hillel person been decently counted successful nan yearly merit reviews for net and promotion.

These affirmative changes, I believe, are owed to nan Trump effect.

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