Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) fell last week after the student-led Divestment Coalition occupied the school’s main administrative building and established an encampment on campus.
The protests, supported by external groups such as National Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement’s New York City chapter, were essentially facilitated by the school, with the Dean of Students even welcoming these outside activists to campus. The administration declined to condemn their actions and hate-filled messages, and members of the encampment may never face disciplinary charges despite the disruptions and the protesters’ anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish and Zionist community members.
Protesters yelled chants supporting violence against Jews, endorsing Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization—and distributed materials glorifying figures such as Yahya Sinwar, the now deceased head of Hamas and leader of the October 7th massacre. Jewish students reported feeling unsafe due to the inflammatory rhetoric and the encampment’s presence, and Jewish students were shouted at and threatened by members of the encampment as they walked by.
Despite concerns, the administration framed the protests as part of the school’s tradition of activism and free speech rather than addressing the harmful effect of the protest or addressing anti-Semitism.
The world is noticing that SLC is no longer the intellectually rigorous and well-respected institution it once was. President Cristle Collins Judd, who transitioned to the College from an administrative position at the Mellon Foundation—an organization that shifted its focus in 2020 to prioritizing social justice in all its grant-making—has presided over a noticeable decline in SLC’s standing.
[RELATED: Sarah Lawrence Has Fallen]
Since Judd’s appointment, the college’s reputation has suffered significantly, as evidenced by its embarrassing placement at 108 of 211 liberal arts colleges in the 2024 U.S. News & World Report rankings. This marks a sharp decline from its former position in the top 40s two decades ago when I began teaching at SLC. Many do not put much stake in college rankings—and for good reason—but there is no denying the college’s stature has diminished. Such is evdienct in the fact that the actions of these students, coupled with the non-response of the College’s president, have understandably drawn widespread criticism.
Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres excoriated the students for their hateful and performative actions. Torres described the students occupying the administrative building as “juvenile delinquents” theatrically playing the roles of “martyrs or jihadists,” asserting that they are “actors” more interested in drama than genuine activism or problem-solving.
Juvenile delinquents, casting themselves in the role of martyrs or jihadists, are theatrically occupying—or in their words “liberating”—Westlands in Sarah Lawrence College.
These so-called “liberators” are not activists but actors, more interested in performing than in… pic.twitter.com/I38WjaJlWC
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 22, 2024
The anti-Semitic rhetoric of these students also drew condemnation from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which stated: “When will these so-called elite universities learn? For more than a week, Sarah Lawrence College has allowed an antisemitic, pro-Hamas encampment to take over its administrative building. Unacceptable.”
When will these so-called elite universities learn? For more than a week, Sarah Lawrence College has allowed an antisemitic, pro-Hamas encampment to take over its administrative building. Unacceptable. https://t.co/5imqGp6jTc
— House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) November 26, 2024
While College outsiders have correctly taken note of these disgraceful behaviors and the complicity of the SLC’s leadership, it is critical to acknowledge that many students are caught in the crossfire—too intimidated, overwhelmed, frightened, or apathetic to resist the chaos. Despite this, some campuses across the nation, including the University of North Carolina and Princeton University, are witnessing students pushing back against this un-American extremism. These are bright spots, yet on most campuses, these illiberal forces remain overwhelmingly dominant and hard to combat.
[RELATED: Amid Tensions, Sensible Students Push for Civil Discourse]
Over the decades, I have seen this fear, self-censorship, and cancel culture thrive and infect many. Countless students come to me on my campus and elsewhere with the same story: they all detail how intense and challenging it has been to speak up and challenge the well-coordinated, aggressive, and vocal voices on the left. They recognize the real costs of being cast out and being labeled as anything but left-wing, which bears the weight of being culturally unacceptable by the mainstream, not just affecting their time on campus but even their employment prospects. So, they self-censor and essentially cancel themselves before others can do it to them.
Eboo Patel found this to be the case at SLC as well when he interviewed students who protested an event and found a “palpable fear of breaking the mold” where if students challenged or questioned the prevailing illiberal voices, they “risked being ‘Sarah Lawrenced’— a particular form of cancellation on the college campus.”
Recently, students have taken to anonymous social media boards to share their frustrations about this intense cancel culture and have painfully illustrated how dissent is almost impossible without real social and reputational consequences. From posts making statements such as “there are so many performative woke people it is honestly disgusting. it’s like a constant competition of who has more trauma and who’s more oppressed and who has more diagnoses and it’s like do you guys even like each other??????” to Jewish students begging their peers not to ignore the pervasive, omnipresent Jewish hate on campus coming from administrators, professors, and students themselves, the true scale and scope of cancel culture is now being documented. A student lamented:
Antisemitism…is simply now becoming a normalized ideology in many of your heads again. This is simply, hate towards Jews on this campus lol, and here’s the scary reality: unlike other forms of targeted hate, antismeitism is being only seen and felt by Jews on this campus who its directly affecting because barely any students blink an eye to it anymore.
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Responses to this post were brutal and showcased the anti-Semitism and constant gaslighting that Jewish students face on campus for expressing their legitimate views, needs, and narratives that may fairly and legitimately differ from their illiberal peers and even faculty. One student responded to the anonymous Jewish student, “I pray to a god I do not believe in that I never get the displeasure of hearing your ignorant nonsense in a seminar environment,” while another declared that “antisemitism IS NOT an issue on campus. that is an excuse for zionists who can’t handle not being the victim.”
[RELATED: Activism Does Not Belong in the Academy]
Cancel culture has created a genuine fear that prevents others from speaking up against anti-Semitism, and when one does, he or she only does so anonymously. One recent post sadly but powerfully illustrates this entire debilitating and dangerous dynamic:
it’s kind of reliving to see that I’m not the only one in this situation…I wish there was more I could do without risking my anonymity. The reason I’m so scared to expose who I am or leave this group is that they are vicious rumor spreaders, and exaggerate their disagreements with anyone they dislike. And they tell EVERYONE. I’ve seen it, too. I’ll be at a party and hear someone say something that may not be worded the best, but their intention is clearly not to offend, and the next day everyone around us is convinced that the person who misspoke is a transphobe. It’s genuinely scary. It’s not so easy to leave.
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There are countless additional examples that capture the power and depth of cancel culture and its insidious chilling effect on expression, debate, dialogue, and learning. But this should give everyone pause, for it is the antithesis of a liberal education, where viewpoint diversity, along with open expression and inquiry, is supposed to be celebrated, protected, and promoted.
In due course, Sarah Lawrence and its president will certainly be held accountable for its disgraceful behavior by both the Office of Civil Rights and the second Trump administration. While controlling cancel culture is extremely difficult, if not impossible, SLC has allowed anti-Semitism to spread. Nevertheless, when Sarah Lawrence is rightly examined in Congress and the White House, it is wise to remember that it—like so many others who are deeply problematic from UCLA to Columbia and Harvard—is populated by many students who cannot stand up to the momentum of anti-Semitsim for fear of being canceled. Ideally, these students could hold their ground, and we should support them, but it may be almost impossible, and we should not overlook the significant numbers of reasonable students who cannot speak and have been silenced.
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Image of flyer from the Sarah Lawrence Divestment Coalition placed under doors on campus taken by Samuel Abrams
As a Sarah Lawrence alum (1975), I’m appalled by reports of anti-Semitism on campus. Thank you, Sam, for making the community aware of what’s going on. I reached out to the director of Westchester Hillel for more details. Everything she says supports everything you say. I’ve reached out to the SLC administration and have a meeting with them set for next week, during which I will voice my concerns. Please continue to keep us updated. If you think of anything alumnx can do, please let me know and I’ll do my best to serve as liaison.
“antismeitism is being only seen and felt by Jews”
Bullshyte — *true* antisemitism is both seen and felt by this Christian.
Don’t tell me I can’t put up Christmas lights — that you are not going to win, and it’s actually a Druid fertility rite. But there is no place in civilized society for what is happening at Sarah Lawrence. Didn’t someone make a movie about what happened on the Edmund Pettis Bridge? Perhaps it should be shown on campus as an example of the price that REAL protesters pay — and which they soon may.
The only problem with tear gas is that police dogs are more sensitive to it than people are.
The weather forecast for Central Park (I assume somewhere near SLC) calls for
Low tonight 29 degrees
High tomorrow 33 degrees
Low tomorrow night 28 degrees
High saturday 38 degrees
Low saturday night 34 degrees
Turn off the heat. The pipes won’t freeze at these temperatures but the little darlings won’t enjoy it. Leave the water on so that the toilets flush — you’ll have a bigger mess later if you don’t — but shut off the heat and the electricity.