Faculty's role in campus antisemitism overlooked over last decade, new AMCHA research reveals

Faculty-led anti-Zionist activism, anchored primarily around public backing for academic boycotts of Israel, has served as a central and long-overlooked driver of campus antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin argues in a new book chapter.

The chapter, titled "Measuring Faculty Anti-Zionist to Predict and Combat Campus Antisemitism," is featured in the new volume Toward the Last Encampment: Campus Culture and the Jews Before and After October 7, edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld and published by Wicked Son.

Drawing on six empirical studies spanning more than a decade, the research demonstrates that faculty endorsement of academic boycotts consistently predicts where antisemitism is most likely to emerge, concentrate, and intensify across US campuses.

AMCHA began compiling a national database of faculty publicly endorsing academic boycotts against Israel in 2013. According to the research, faculty support served as an objective measure of anti-Zionism because endorsements are verifiable, academic boycotts demand concrete action within the academy, and their explicit goal is to de-normalize Israel and Zionism in academic life.

Across six studies, the data revealed a consistent pattern linking faculty boycotters to campus hostility. Campuses with higher numbers of faculty academic boycotters experienced increased levels of reported antisemitic activity, with faculty support emerging as a stronger predictor of the targeting of Jewish students for harm than even the presence of an anti-Zionist student group.

Furthermore, academic departments with one or more faculty boycotters were significantly more likely to sponsor events featuring boycott-supporting speakers. Specifically, Ethnic Studies units with a boycotter were roughly 10 times more likely, Gender Studies about 12 times more likely, and Middle East Studies about 5 times more likely to host such events.

Additionally, campuses with five or more academic boycotters were approximately seven times more likely to have a department issue or endorse an anti-Zionist statement. The report defines anti-Zionist statements as those containing rhetoric that denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state or demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, Israelis, Zionism or Zionists.

Classroom instruction was similarly affected, as courses taught by instructors who supported academic boycotts had a median of approximately 78 percent of their required readings authored by boycott supporters, compared to a median of 17 percent in courses taught by instructors who did not support boycotts.

Antisemitism escalated after October 7

The chapter also examines how the dynamic escalated following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, as individual faculty activism transformed into organized networks through chapters of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP). AMCHA's research found that campuses with pre-existing academic boycotters were significantly more likely to establish FJP chapters.

Where FJP groups were present, the likelihood of physical assaults on Jewish students was more than seven times higher, violent threats were about 3.4 times higher, and campus protests and encampments lasted significantly longer compared to comparable institutions.

To help university leaders, trustees, parents, and policymakers evaluate these institutional risks, the research highlights the Anti-Zionist Faculty Barometer, a tool that compiles objective metrics, including the number of faculty boycotters, FJP presence, chapter activity levels, and departmental statements, to rank campuses on a scale from negligible to extreme.

The chapter concludes that faculty boycott activity functions as both a signal and a driver of campus antisemitism, with organized faculty activity amplifying its effects and making visible a faculty dimension that universities have overlooked for years.

Three recommendations to address campus antisemitism

To address these challenges, Rossman-Benjamin outlines specific recommendations for institutional and government leaders.

First, school administrators must establish robust safeguards and enforcement mechanisms to prevent faculty from using academic positions and departmental affiliations to promote politically motivated activism that targets students and colleagues for harm.

Second, state and federal legislators should consider enacting legislation, such as Texas's pioneering 2023 law prohibiting state-funded colleges from implementing academic boycotts, to withhold government funding from schools that permit faculty to engage in such behavior.

Third, in the absence of official action, university stakeholders should actively press leaders to end the politicization of academic units and protect the campus community from the politically motivated misuse of academic positions.

Reflecting on the overarching findings of the research, Rossman-Benjamin notes, "For years, universities have treated campus antisemitism largely as a problem of student activism or isolated incidents, while one of the most consequential forces has received far less scrutiny."

She adds, "October 7 did not create this problem. It exposed a problem that had been building inside our universities for years, with faculty playing a critical and largely overlooked role. Across study after study, faculty support for academic BDS emerges as an extraordinarily important indicator of antisemitism – and the evidence shows that its influence can reach from individual professors into classrooms, departments, organized faculty networks and the broader campus environment."