Anti-Semitism or Free Speech? College Students Cheer and Fear Trump Order

Last month, U.N.C. was required to include and describe “anti-Semitic harassment” in its anti-discrimination policy as part of a resolution with the Education Department, which had investigated a complaint of anti-Semitism. The investigation stemmed from an event last spring hosted by U.N.C. and Duke University, titled “Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities,” that featured a Palestinian rapper whose onstage statements included, “Think of Mel Gibson, go that anti-Semitic.”

The department’s inquiry into Duke is still pending, but earlier this year it ordered the Duke-U.N.C. Consortium for Middle East Studies to recast its program on the grounds that it featured a biased curriculum.

Some students questioned whether the policy could adequately address disputes over Israel, like a recent visit by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel that was protested by pro-Palestinian activists.

Mr. Kaplan, the junior at Duke, is a member of the group that invited Ms. Livni. He condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which supports economic measures opposing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, as an example of disproportionate attention on Israel. Yet countries like China, where Duke has a campus, receive little student condemnation for egregious human rights violations, he said.

“Look at what China is doing to the Uighurs,” he said. “But no one is calling for a boycott of China. That feeds the view that Israel is the only problem in the world, and that to me is quite difficult to divorce from the fact that it’s the only Jewish country in the world.”

Max Cherman, co-president of the Duke Israel Public Affairs Committee, said he believes some criticism of Israel may be rooted in anti-Semitism. “There are certain students who will go out and particularly be very vicious in their words against supporters of Israel on campus,” he said. “Are they criticizing Israeli policy or saying something different?”

Still, Mr. Cherman, 21, said he saw the order not as a tool for tamping down the anti-Israel movement but as protection against religious discrimination, such as if a student government scheduled a session on the Jewish Sabbath. “It’s not to stifle free speech,” he said.