College kids’ anti-Israel folly is free speech. But their teachers fund antisemites | Opinion

A man at a protest against the war in Gaza at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., carried a sign with an Israeli flag and the slogan “FINAL SOLUTION.” Echoing Hitler’s words is about as vile a call for Jewish genocide as I can imagine. It makes the more typical genocidal chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” seem subtle.

At Princeton, the protesters fly Hezbollah flags. At Columbia, the leader of the demonstrators said on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

It’s sick and says something dire about the moral compass of college students. It is not a surprise though since many of the protesters are drawn from the one-third of Generation Z who believe Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. They’re not just opposed to the tragic deaths of civilians in Gaza — they are on the side of Hamas terrorists who want to destroy Israel.

Sick as they are, even the most evil Nazi-sympathetic sentiments are protected by the First Amendment. As student protesters in Missouri, New York, California and Texas arrested by the score, free speech is in question. As long as they are not blocking other students from attending classes, making threats or attacking police (as they have at Emory), the misguided kids should get a lot of leeway as they vent.

That kids do things I think are stupid isn’t new to me. I am a parent, after all, and I have learned the wisdom of the old saying, “If you’re not a liberal when you are young, you have no heart. If you don’t get more conservative as you age, you have no brain.” My liberal phase was pretty short, but I was a fan of Marx in seventh and eighth grade. My hippie parents had left his works on our family room bookshelf.

What I do worry about are the adults who are backing these protests as dozens of members of the faculty have done at Columbia University in New York City where the protests — and the arrests — first burst onto the national stage.

In doing some reporting, I found that in addition to supporting the protests and their antisemitic excesses, some of the faculty were donors to antisemites directly. Tenured professors and even a vice dean at the school gave to two members of Congress, Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota and Michigan with a long record of Jew-hating statements. Tlaib Has been censured by the House of Representatives for her disgusting views.

Indeed, across the country, hundreds of professors, administrators and other university staff have given money to the antisemitic duo. This bad judgment too, is protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn’t prevent us from asking these university employees what they are thinking.

I reached out to a few at Columbia, but those professors didn’t want to talk. They didn’t return phone calls and emails over several days. Closer to home, faculty, staff and administrators at the University of Missouri and the University of Kansas have donated to the two members of the far-left “Squad” to the tune of about $12,000 over the last three election cycles.

The biggest group of donors is at the University of Kansas medical school, where professors and clinical staff from Jordan, Egypt and Qatar have donated thousands of dollars to the antisemitic duo.

I asked professor Eyad Al-Hihi and assistant professor Sammy Tayiem, two of the larger and more recent donors — both gave over $1,000 last year — about their donations and whether they knew that in giving money to Tlaib they were supporting a censured antisemite. I also asked whether they shared her views about Jews. They didn’t respond to my emails, either.

As protests rage across the country and even gain the vocal support of Hamas leaders, kids should be given a lot of room for First Amendment follies. They’ll grow out of it.

I have more concerns about the adults who have taught these kids in college and high school. They shouldn’t be proud of their students’ poor judgment and shallow thinking.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com