Downplaying antisemitism and demonizing Zionism: How Rutgers replaced inquiry with activism

On Aug. 18, Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights released a podcast episode about antisemitism. For anyone familiar with the center’s work, much of the discussion would have sounded all too familiar.Jewish students’ fear over slogans widely interpreted as antisemitic is acknowledged, then largely explained away.Antisemitism complaints filed through federal civil rights law are described as “lawfare” designed to suppress political dissent. Concerns about the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism are treated primarily as attempts to restrict criticism of Israel. The episode, “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine-Israel Discourse,” brought together CSRR Executive Director Sahar Aziz, Mitchell Plitnik, and Jewish Voice for Peace board member Jonathan Matz.What makes the discussion significant is not simply the conclusions its participants reach. It is that the conversation appears under the banner of an academic center at Rutgers Law School, where the expectation should be that difficult political questions are examined rather than resolved in advance.When Jewish students’ fear of slogans such as “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” comes up, Matz acknowledges that those students genuinely feel threatened. He then argues that the terms have been “defined for them in ways that are not the real meanings.”Aziz later offers two contemporary interpretations of “from the river to the sea”: a two-state solution or a single secular state for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The possibility that the slogan can carry an antisemitic meaning involving the removal of Jews from the region is described as belonging to a very small fringe group.The same framework is applied to campus antisemitism complaints. Aziz characterizes use of the Department of Education’s Title VI process as “lawfare” and an “abuse,” arguing that many complaints concern the censorship of political dissent rather than antisemitism itself.Those positions can certainly be debated. The larger question is whether CSRR consistently subjects them to the same level of criticism it applies to the arguments on the other side.Since Oct. 7, 2023, the center has repeatedly hosted programming on Israel, Zionism and antisemitism, including Joseph Massad’s “The West, Israel and Settler Colonization of Palestine,” Noura Erakat’s “Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine,” “Gaza, Genocide and International Law,” a “Teach-In on Political Zionism,” and “Antisemitism and Palestinian Genocide.”Placed alongside the Aug. 18 podcast, a recognizable pattern emerges.Israel is regularly criticized through the inflammatory language of settler colonialism, occupation, genocide, and human rights violations. Zionism is constantly portrayed as a political project. Antisemitism allegations are dismissed as simply being weaponized against the “Palestinian cause.”Nearly three years after Oct. 7, the August episode spends comparatively little time examining Hamas’s ideology, the massacre itself, or why the killing and kidnapping of Israeli civilians might shape how Jewish students understand political rhetoric on campus. Hamas and Israeli victims are mentioned, but their suffering is either minimized or discussed in a dismissive tone. That imbalance matters because the issue is larger than whether one agrees with CSRR’s conclusions or not.Universities should provide room for unpopular arguments, sharp criticism, and politically uncomfortable scholarship. However, academic inquiry also depends on a willingness to test assumptions, confront evidence that goes against a preferred interpretation, and engage seriously with competing explanations.When a research center repeatedly approaches the same political conflict through the same conceptual framework, invites speakers who largely reinforce that framework, and gives significantly less attention to arguments that might challenge it, the distinction between inquiry and advocacy begins to narrow.CSRR openly conflates research and education with advocacy. And while advocacy itself is hardly unusual on a university campus. The harder question is what happens when it acquires the authority and credibility of academic scholarship without the intellectual openness normally expected of it.Rutgers has given CSRR considerable room to develop its work. But the center has used that room to build an influential academic network instead of presenting objective views and opinions.TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT THE ABA — AND WE HAVE THE RECEIPTSThe Aug. 18 podcast makes it harder for Rutgers to ignore the larger pattern emerging from CSRR’s work.At what point does a university research center stop pursuing scholarship and start using academic credibility to advance a political agenda?Anna Miller is the spokeswoman for Protect Our Campus, a nonpartisan organization that documents antisemitism, extremism, and institutional accountability concerns in academic and public-facing spaces. Through research, public outreach, and direct engagement with institutions, Protect Our Campus works to expose harmful conduct and strengthen accountability.