Majority of U.S. faculty surveyed say Israel is an apartheid state, report shows
A new Brandeis University report finds that 54 percent of surveyed U.S. faculty agree with the claim that 'Israel is an apartheid state,' though most faculty do not discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict in class.
The report also notes that only a small minority of faculty express views considered anti-Semitic, with such views concentrated in specific departments like ethnic studies and Middle Eastern studies.
A new Brandeis University report found that a majority of U.S. faculty support the claim that “Israel is an apartheid state.”
Published July 22 and authored by researchers Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht, and Leonard Saxe, the study reveals that 54 percent of surveyed professors agreed with the statement.
“Faculty were divided with respect to whether they agreed that ‘Israel is an apartheid state,’” the report explains. “Fifty-four percent of faculty agreed with this statement, although there was substantial variation in the level of agreement.”
Overall, the report found that most faculty are not politically active, including on the Israel-Palestine issue, and generally do not hold views considered to be anti-Semitic.
For instance, the report found that only about 3 percent of non-Jewish faculty expressed views on Israel that align with formal definitions of anti-Semitism, such as denying Israel’s right to exist. Another 7 percent held openly hostile attitudes toward Jews as a group.
While liberals were more likely to be hostile toward Israel, faculty with strong opinions on issues like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or decolonization were still generally not hostile to either group.
“[D]espite the intense focus on how faculty teach about Israel, more than three quarters of the faculty in our sample reported that, over the past academic year, the Israel-Palestine conflict never came up in class discussions, and less than 10% reported actively teaching about it,” the report states.
Raeefa Shams, the director of communications at the Academic Engagement Network, a group dedicated to countering anti-Semitism, told Jewish News Syndicate that the report confirms most faculty anti-Semitism comes from a “small minority of loud, extreme voices.”
“It is up to the silent majority to speak up and stand up, so that our campuses can be places of open inquiry and dialogue across difference, where all faculty and students, including those who are Jewish, Zionist and Israeli, are comfortable expressing their identities,” Shams contended.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the AMCHA Initiative, another nonprofit dedicated to fighting anti-Jewish discrimination, added that the loud minority is often concentrated in specific departments.
“It is important to recognize that these faculty members are concentrated in certain disciplines—ethnic studies, gender studies and Middle Eastern studies, where they often make up the majority of the faculty in those departments,” Rossman-Benjamin explained.
Campus Reform reported last year about an AMCHA Initiative report which found that universities with Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) groups are significantly more likely to experience anti-Semitic incidents, including violence and threats against Jewish students.
“FJP groups are not only influencing student-led antisemitic activism but are also spearheading the promotion of academic boycotts that target Jewish students, faculty, and pro-Israel organizations for harm,” the study found.
Campus Reform has contacted Brandeis University, Leonard Saxe, Shahar Hecht, and Graham Wright for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
