After the emancipation of slaves, the Republican-majority Congress banned racial discrimination in schools, churches, and on public transportation. However, the Supreme Court overturned that legislation in 1883, ultimately leading to the 1896 ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson, that determined that the policy of “separate but equal” was constitutional. Plessy institutionalized segregation.
Challenges to segregationist policies gained steam in the 1930s, as organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sought legal remedy to the unfair practice. It would be years before the Supreme Court legally overturned segregation in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education.
Unfortunately, in many cases, Brown was just the beginning of the fight for equality. Racist educators and political leaders were not convinced that all Americans deserved equal protection under the law, and they took active steps to infringe on the civil rights of those Americans.
One of the most well-known stories about school integration involved Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In 1957, nine Black students enrolled in Central High and, when attempting to attend school, were physically blocked by the segregationist Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine Black students from attending class. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to protect those nine Black students and ensure they could exercise their rights to attend Central High. When local leadership failed to ensure the physical safety of American students, the President took action to secure that safety.
It took moral courage for leaders to stand up for justice against bigotry. Unfortunately, the same courage seems to be in short supply today. Following Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, multiple anti-Israel events on college campuses have taken place, endangering the well-being of Jewish and Zionist students and faculty. Sadly, many educators and administrators have failed to stand up for Jewish students and their colleagues.
Instead, they have made a clear distinction between which communities are deemed worthy of protection (those defined as oppressed) and which ones have been doomed to collective punishment because they are seen as oppressors.
On October 12th, a 19-year-old student at NYC’s Columbia University who was tearing down pictures of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas, attacked a 24-year-old Israeli student with a stick, breaking his finger.
The same day, a CUNY teaching assistant assaulted a Jewish student, stealing his flag.
On October 17, at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, students assaulted an Israeli student, attempting to steal a flag he was carrying.
On October 26 at New York’s Cooper Union College, Jewish students were barricaded in the library when antisemitic demonstrators surrounded the building, pounding on the windows as they chanted “Free Palestine.”
A Jewish student at the University of Pennsylvania was assaulted while putting on tefillin during a Penn Against the Occupation event, “Collective Walk Out for Palestine.”
We have seen some university administrators ban student groups that have fueled bigotry on campus. However, all too often, academics are hiding behind ideas of free speech and academic freedom, ignoring the harassment, threats, and violence their Jewish students and faculty are facing.
Are students and faculty free to express their political stances on campus? Yes. However, Jewish students and faculty also have the right to be protected from threats and violence. And if school administrators will not do their duty and ensure the security of their campus community, political leaders must.
It is part of the National Guard’s mission to respond “to domestic emergencies,” and I see no more obvious emergency than the targeting of a recognized minority group in the United States. Governors have the responsibility to protect the citizens of their states, especially in cases where other leaders are refusing to do so. If political leaders of decades past felt it necessary to protect Black students who were facing violence at institutions of learning, today’s leaders must do the same and protect Jewish students and faculty.
Dr. Brandy Shufutinsky is a social worker, writer, researcher, and advocate.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Bali Lavine.