Combating Antisemitism, Upholding Democracy, Protecting Free Speech

A newly released Impose poll conducted in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Rochester, showed that 72% of Jewish Americans are concerned about antisemitism on campus and nearly 60% disapprove of the Trump administration's decision to withhold federal funding from Harvard and UCLA over allegations of antisemitism.

Professor David Myers, a Nexus Project Task Force member and professor of Jewish history at the University of California, Los Angeles, co-wrote an op-ed for the LA Times calling the Trump administration’s lawsuits around antisemitism on college campuses a “dangerous charade.” After the Trump administration announced it would suspend $584 million in federal research grants to UCLA, Myers wrote the suspension is a “shallow and disingenuous plot to destroy [UCLA] and the values of free inquiry and debate in the name of a dangerous, illiberal ideology that has been against higher education for years.” He warned against the university’s use of antisemitism as a pretext to advance its authoritarian agenda: “What this destructive path will not do is make the campus safer for Jews — or anyone else, for that matter.”

After the Trump administration told Harvard University it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act over antisemitism on campus

As a Boston court weighed the legality of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, Nexus Project National Director Jonathan Jacoby spoke with The New York Times about how the White House’s campus policies reflect Project Esther, a Heritage Foundation blueprint for silencing pro-Palestinian protestors under the guise of countering antisemitism. Jacoby said: “These are examples of the Trump administration weaponizing legitimate concerns about Jewish safety, capitalizing on or manipulating Jewish fear to suppress constitutionally protected speech. What you see happening in Boston right now is part of that script: They’re saying that pro-Palestinian demonstrations are an expression of support for Hamas.”

Nexus Washington Director Kevin Rachlin told The Washington Post, “since Trump came [into office, the Trump administration is] weaponizing Jewish fear to advance a very specific agenda.” Rachlin noted that the Trump administrations endanger Jewish Americans, questioning, “What will you do to protect us? Shutting down and defunding schools, deporting people? That doesn’t protect Jews.”

Opinion Columnist Thomas Friedman explores the U.S.-Israel relationship under the Trump and Netanyahu administrations and how the two leaders undermine democracy to push their autocratic agendas. Friedman interviewed Nexus National Director Jonathan Jacoby about Nexus’s recent report Fighting Antisemitism, Protecting Democracy: A Strategy for the Trump Era. Jacoby commented: “President Trump has taken a real phenomenon that needs to be addressed — antisemitism that emerges out of debates on Israel — and is using it to justify crackdowns on immigration, higher education and free speech on Israel.”