Campus self censorship in the pro Palestinian era

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Will the Trump administration’s war against antisemitism on Ivy League campuses push Jewish students into the Republican camp, or will the young right’s growing skepticism of Israel leave Jewish students politically isolated?

In my new report, “Jewish Inhibition, Conservative Freedom: New Trends in Expressive Freedom on Elite American Campuses,” I discovered something startling in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s large-scale student surveys. The proportion of Jewish students at Ivy League institutions who said they self-censored their opinions several times a week jumped from 10%-13% during 2021-23 to 35% in 2024. At the same time, conservative Ivy League students experienced a big drop in self-censoring, from 55%-58% during 2021-23 to 31% in 2024. The pattern could be seen across the full range of colleges, but was most pronounced in prestigious universities whose students lean left.

A closer look at the 2024 data shows that the pro-Palestinian tent encampments had a big impact: Before they went up on April 17, 28% of Ivy League Jewish students self-censored. Afterward, 40% did. Across all institutions in the FIRE data, statistical analysis shows that the encampments increased Jewish self-censorship while reducing it for conservatives. Conservative speech has for years been the least free of any major demographic, but Jews have now converged with them. In the Ivy League, Jews now self-censor more than conservatives do.

Why would Jewish elite students feel more inhibited at precisely the time conservative students feel freer? The main reason seems to be that student-led cancel culture pivoted from focusing on race and gender to foregrounding Israel-Palestine. As recently as 2022, FIRE data shows that nearly two-thirds of student-on-student targeting revolved around perceived race or gender transgressions. By 2024, 65% focused on Israel-Palestine, with just 25% concerning race or gender.

This took heat off conservative students and placed it on Jews. I argue that this is because race and gender are central to the identity politics ideology of the campus left while Israel-Palestine is somewhat secondary: Though it can be shoehorned into a racial frame, it primarily concerns the actions of a faraway state. Conservatives are viewed negatively primarily because of the left’s sense that they are moral transgressors on race or gender, not because of their views on Israel. This was especially true under the Biden administration when the FIRE surveys I examined were fielded, with leftist animus over Middle East politics directed principally at the Democratic establishment.

One result of the left’s pivot to Israel-Palestine has been to alienate many Jewish students from the far left, and, to a lesser degree, from the left in general. Prior to 2024, FIRE data shows that Jews leaned left of the average American student, including on elite campuses. But, according to the 2024 data, most Jewish students, even liberals, support Israel while non-Jewish students, apart from conservatives, do not. For instance, American students in 2024 were somewhat more likely to say that Israel rather than Hamas caused the “2023 outbreak of violence in the Middle East.” Among liberal Jewish students, 53% said Hamas started the violence and 20% that Israel did, placing them far closer to conservative Jews, 83% of whom said Hamas started it, than liberal non-Jews, just 14% of whom blamed Hamas.

When the encampments went up on elite campuses, Jewish students abandoned the far left in droves. The share of Jewish Ivy League students who identify as “very liberal” on a 7-point ideology scale declined from 40% before the encampments to 13% after they appeared. The proportion of “strong Democrats” tanked from 37% to 14% while the Republican share rose from 12% to 18%. Ivy League Jews went from being well to the left of the median Ivy League student to leaning right of the average.

But non-Jewish conservative students have not rallied to Israel, and clearly do not feel chilled by the left’s protests against Israel. While conservative students are twice as likely to blame Hamas as Israel for starting hostilities in October 2023, most see both as culpable or have no opinion. Just 38% blame Hamas. This means that liberal Jewish students are considerably more pro-Israel (53% blame Hamas) than conservative non-Jews.

Young conservatives prioritize “America First” and free speech over supporting Israel and combating antisemitism. Recent polling finds that conservatives under 50 have shifted from nearly two-thirds support for Israel to a balanced position. A University of Maryland poll finds that more Republicans under 35 attribute campus protests to Israel’s actions in Gaza than to antisemitism.

So conservative students on elite campuses have a weak sense of linked fate with Jewish students who are feeling hard-pressed by their liberal non-Jewish classmates. The result is an increasingly isolated and politically alienated group of elite Jewish students, who are likely to have an outsize influence on the future of Jewish American political loyalty.

Jewish students are at a crossroads.

Much depends on how the Trump administration’s targeting of elite universities unfolds. If it solidifies the connection between Israel and conservatism on campus, Jewish students could move into the Republican column in larger numbers. If conservative students follow suit by embracing the cause of Israel, this could smooth the path for Jews to move right. Liberal students could then react by policing the right-wing minority more aggressively, reversing conservatives’ recent gains in freedom of expression.

But another scenario is possible, in which the Tucker Carlson isolationist wing of the MAGA movement detaches young Republicans from Israel. Trump could make a deal with Harvard, Columbia, and other universities, weakening the focus on antisemitism. If so, Jewish students—and perhaps American Jews more broadly—could find themselves caught between the antipathy of the left and the apathy of the right in a no-man’s-land of political alienation.

Even among non-MAGA conservative, there's another factor affecting conservative students at elite universities, in particular: Most conservatives at elite universities are not evangelical Christians, and hence not Christian Zionists.

Conservatives at elite universities are much more likely to be Catholics than evangelical Protestants. Hence, for example, nearly all the conservative justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic -- probably because Catholics are much more likely than evangelicals to attend elite law schools.

Catholic conservatives might still be sympathetic to Israel, despite not being Christian Zionists per se, simply on the grounds of not wanting the U.S.A. to abandon any of its traditional allies. Or they might see Israel as a besieged "Western" country (whatever "Western" means to them). But they are unlikely to have the strong attachment to Israel that a full-blown Christian Zionist would have.

I can think of three things that might turn non-MAGA Catholic conservatives against Israel:

1) Becoming more aware of the fate of Palestinian Christians, some of whom are Roman Catholic.

2) Becoming more sympathetic to Muslims as a result of forming alliances with the more conservative Muslims on some "culture war" issues (e.g. anti-gay, anti-trans).

3) A revival of plain old-fashioned, traditional Judeophobia. That is certainly possible, unfortunately. And, to whatever extent it does happen, the people standing against it (besides Jews themselves) would most likely be primarily leftists.

I'm very curious which views exactly they feel obliged to self-censor.

If someone holds pro-genocide views (for example), it's probably not a bad thing they feel obliged to self-censor those in polite society.