American universities are becoming hotbeds of antisemitism. This is happening, in part, because of the expanding number and power of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices that, rather than restraining hostility toward Jews, actually foment it. Their focus on political activism against the Jewish state of Israel clearly crosses the line from legitimate concern for human rights into outright antisemitism, providing encouragement and assistance to others on campus to do the same.
To gauge the extent of university DEI administrators’ antipathy toward Israel, we examined public social media posts by hundreds of DEI staff. We identified Twitteraccounts for almost 800 such administrators in the “Power 5” athletic conferences, and searched those Twitter feeds for all tweets, retweets and likes that mention Israel or, for comparison purposes, China. Our method captures only a portion of DEI staff activity; nevertheless, it can shine a spotlight on what many DEI staff believe and are willing to promote.
Our study reveals that many DEI staff are far more interested in Israel than China, and are more consistently critical of the Jewish state than of a repressive communist regime. In total, we found three times as many tweets about Israel as about China. Of the 633 tweets regarding Israel, 605 (96 percent) were critical. Of the 216 tweets regarding China, 133 (62 percent) expressed favorable sentiment.
