Federal response to antisemitism is unlike the response to racism

No university has ever been asked to pay $1 billion in federal penalties over anti-Black racism.

- SHAUN HARPER

GEORGE FREY Getty Images CAMPUS PROTESTS in Utah didn't inspire enforcement like UCLA and Columbia have seen.

ANTISEMITISM is abhorrent. No Jewish person should ever experience it, and universities must do all they can to eradicate it on campuses.

The Trump administration is pushing colleges and universities to address antisemitism by threatening, freezing and revoking federal funding and demanding millions of dollars to settle allegations — or in UCLA's case, $1 billion.

These unprecedented federal penalties, which the government claims are partially for failing to address antisemitism, leave lots of Black people who either attended or worked at predominantly white institutions asking, “What about us?” Reports of antisemitism sound familiar to Black people who have encountered anti-Black harassment in similar forms.

Generations of Black collegians and employees have been called racial slurs on campuses. The N-word also has been spray-painted and nooses have been hung on Black students’ dorms, on Black culture centers and on portraits and statues of influential Black people across campuses.