Dear Editor,
Over the past eight months, students at American University (AU) have been the victims of rampant antisemitism ranging from Nazi graffiti to disruptive and hateful protests.
Since October 7, AU has become a hostile campus for not just Jewish and Israeli students, but also for anyone who values the free exchange of ideas that are crucial to academia. The American University Student Government (AUSG) has taken a negligent and antisemitic stance in favor of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement by passing Resolution 19-018. During the AUSG meeting on April 21, proponents of the resolution refused to acknowledge the significant drawbacks to passing BDS legislation. The one student who voiced opposition to the bill regarding the negative effects BDS has on Palestinians was speaking to close-minded students unwilling to acknowledge the extreme nuance of this conflict.
The BDS movement is inherently antisemitic and anti-coexistence; it’s designed to hate rather than heal. While this type of legislation is disguised as legitimate criticism of Israel, it is demonizing Israel while holding them to double standards. If AU students were truly in favor of helping Palestinians, they would not take such a strong stance for BDS — a movement that harms Palestinians. According to Kristin Lindow, senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service, the BDS movement has very little impact on the Israeli economy. Rather, the movement hurts the Palestinian people as BDS attempts to sever the connection between Israeli companies and the estimated 130,000 Palestinian workers who have permits to work in Israel. On average, they are paid double working for Israeli companies compared to companies in the West Bank or Gaza.
The BDS movement is incredibly divisive and counterproductive to any solution. Instead of creating dialogue to diffuse the situation in the Middle East or on campus, AUSG has decided to further divide the community they are designed to serve.
The BDS movement also limits freedom of speech. Academic freedom and the unlimited free exchange of ideas are what makes American universities so prestigious. BDS attempts to stifle Jewish and Israeli voices on campus and aims to cut out Jewish voices in academia, which is inherently anti-American. While AUSG has taken such a strong stance in favor of AU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) freedom of speech over the last few weeks, advocating for BDS does the exact opposite for Jewish students.
During the student government meeting to discuss the BDS resolution, an AUSG senator exposed the sponsors of this resolution by sharing that they were secretly withholding information about this resolution from Jewish and pro-Israel student groups on campus. This directly violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which states that students should not be discriminated against, including their exclusion from participation in various events based on their protected class.
A week leading up to its passing, members of SJP, AU Dissenters and AUSG worked together in secret and intimidated the senator from sharing the upcoming vote with students from AU’s Students Supporting Israel and Hillel; the latter is a religious organization that serves Jews regardless of their opinions on Israel. AUSG should never actively exclude any student, especially not based on their race, national origin, sexual orientation, religion or any other protected class. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened.
If AUSG was so confident that what they were doing was right, why would they feel the need to exclude Jewish students from the legislative process? Despite the semester being over, all senators involved in this civil rights violation should issue an apology to the approximately 1600 Jewish students at AU. Additionally, this resolution was announced on Shabbat, when Jewish students could not attend, and voted on the Sunday before Passover began. With no time to organize, the senators were left with only one perspective and no knowledge of the true effects of a BDS resolution.
Time after time, this campus faces baseless anti-Israel claims in an attempt to ostracize the Jewish and Israeli communities. AUSG is no different. While elected by less than 13% of the student population, they continue to use their power to further divide an already polarized campus. BDS has no place on any American college campus, and its presence is threatening. Similar to student governments across the country, under the pretense of legitimate Palestinian activism, AUSG, AU Dissenters and AU SJP have taken an anti-coexistence stance that further hurts not just the AU or Jewish/Israeli communities but Palestinians as well.
Ethan Kassar
Washington, D.C.