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Long may his voice be heard!" Dan Gillerman, Israeli Ambassador to the UN 1235330 enneth Marcus says anti- Semitism is a serious col- lege campus issue. And he should know. Staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an inde- pendent bipartisan agency estab- lished by Congress in 1957, Marcus is an experienced civil rights attorney, litigator and leader who oversaw the Commission's 2006 study of campus anti-Semitism. Kenneth Marcus addressed Marcus the community at a public pro- gram organized by StandWithUs- Michigan on March 26 at Temple Israel. Also speaking was Aryeh Weinberg, research associ- ate at the San Aryeh Francisco-based Weinberg Institute for Jewish & Community Research. While many campus programs and projects focus on educating and empowering students to challenge misrepresentations and respond to attacks on Jews and Israel, the speak- ers focused on the need for universi- ties to take action against campus anti-Semitism and the role of outside groups and individuals in ensuring that they do. Marcus says it is only Jewish audi- ences who sometimes express dis- comfort with a focus on issues affect- ing their own community. Jewish leaders often urge him to talk about civil rights in general and not about anti-Semitism. "Maybe they are just so concerned about the world and social justice, or maybe they don't want to talk about challenges they would prefer do not exist:' Marcus said. Outlining four different areas of anti-Semitism — classical European, Arab and Muslim; anti-Israelism that "crosses the line"; anti-globalism; and anti-Americanism that blames Jews first — he said that "in many cases" they are "camouflaged" as free speech though "sometimes it is truly anti-Semitic bigotry that merely cloaks itself as anti-Zionism?' In 2004, his department added religion to the list of protected classes. He says that in the 1980s "we thought that campus anti-Semitism didn't exist except as a historical topic" because the challenges Jews face are so much different than quo- tas or institutionalized discrimina- tion prevalent decades ago. "It is worse now," Marcus says, though he admits "we don't have the data, and I don't think the govern- ment is doing enough to find the data." He says the Commission wants to inform college students of their rights and have them file complaints if they feel they have been wronged. Lack Of Civility Weinberg, who co-authored The Uncivil University: Politics and Propaganda in American Education with scholar Gary Tobin, described the book as "a critique of the lack of civility in higher education and how it leads to anti-Semitism on campus." While acknowledging the high quality of many American universi- ties, which are the envy of the world, he claimed, "a climate of incivil- ity has dramatically subverted the institutions and we've lost the ability to debate and discuss in a civilized manner." He says rhetoric has often replaced facts while vilification of opponents and the silencing of unpopular views has increased, and one of the most egregious exam- ples are anti-Semitism and anti- Israelism." "Legitimate criticism of Israel is, and should be, part of the campus debate," Weinberg says, but "Israel often serves as a proxy" for hateful views historically reserved for the Jews. To prove his point, he gave numer- ous examples where criticism crosses the line, including the marginaliza- "