Name the Victims! The University of Chicago Must Confront Antisemitism

Recently, Paul Alivisatos, President of the University of Chicago, published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal explaining how and why he broke up the pro-Hamas encampments at his school. President Alivisatos explained that he enforced the university’s policy of administrative neutrality to avoid taking sides and stifling debate.1

While the breakup of the University of Chicago protest is commendable, it is disturbing that Alivisatos could not address the Jewish victims of these protests directly in his essay. Applying campus rules or a neutrality policy is not mutually exclusive to naming the victims. Alivisatos could have explained, for example, why he chose not to invoke Title VI, which prohibits harassment based on religion and ethnicity. He had national legal means to address this problem, not just campus policy. 

Yet, this university president chose to omit the original victims of the protests, Jewish members of the university community, and did not mention the antisemitic discrimination and harassment that have been recorded on the University of Chicago campus by the Anti-Defamation League. 2 

Perhaps Alivisatos’ methods are not as neutral as he suggests. He missed an opportunity to educate “neutral” members of campus about the oldest form of hatred in the world. Instead, he chose a de facto continuation of DEI policies that render Jews invisible at organizations.  

Omitting incidents of Jew-hatred in a piece that is supposed to set an example serves to erase the original victims. Victims need to be named. They are the primary evidence for the crime. Even in sexual assault cases where the victim’s privacy is usually protected, the general public may still know something about who was attacked, including sex and the circumstances. This is precisely why antisemitic women, who would usually consider rape victims the primary evidence for the crime, are denying the atrocities of October 7. If the rape victim is considered evidence, then the crimes simply could not have occurred. 

There is no evidence of a crime if the victims are not acknowledged. If President Alivisatos cannot address antisemitism directly, it not only erases Jewish victims; it also does not bode well for a University of Chicago education. The pro-Hamas encampments weren’t just about disruptions to campus life, taking over private property, and, in the case of Columbia, holding maintenance staff hostage. This violence had its origins in a millennia-old hatred that is the canary in the coal mine for threats to democracy. 

When a university president can’t make Jews visible parts of his community, he is still part of the problem, no matter how effective he was in restoring law and order.