Views

12 | OCTOBER 10 • 2019 

and liberals, might be inclined 
to answer “no.
” Yet, if the DOE 
is dispensing money to schools 
throughout the country, why 
shouldn’
t it monitor how funds 
are being spent?
The federal government is 
quite vigilant about policing 
the use of grant money when it 
comes to possible discrimina-
tory conduct or practices. The 
same is true for a host of other 
issues relating to federal pref-
erences about a wide array of 
conduct and agendas. Why then 
would monitoring anti-Semi-
tism be the one topic on which 
Washington should stay mum? 
The Obama administration 
ignored many anti-Semitic 
incidents on college campus-
es during its eight years in 
office and dismissed calls for 
it to use the threat of loss of 
federal funding to force those 
responsible to act. It was only 
after DeVos and Marcus were 
appointed to their posts by 
Trump that the DOE began to 
take an active interest in the 
way hatred of Jews has found a 
home on some campuses and 
especially within departments 
focused on the Middle East.
These departments are free to 
go on teaching the history of the 
Middle East in a manner that 
treats the presence of Christians 

and Jews there as illegitimate 
or to promote BDS and other 
forms of anti-Semitism. They 
have a choice. If they don’
t want 
federal criticism, they can give 
up the money they get from the 
federal government or any other 
entity that seeks to uphold the 
standards of decency one would 
not think has to be imposed on 
such elite institutions. Indeed, 
plenty of Middle East govern-
ments, such as that of Qatar, 
are happy to dispense money 
to American institutions while 
promoting a different agenda 
than that of the administration.
But if they do so, they can’
t 
pretend they are responsible 
scholars or anything other than 
promoters of hate.
What Trump’
s DOE has done 
is neither Islamophobic nor 
an unconscionable interfer-
ence in academia worthy of an 
authoritarian regime. It’
s merely 
upholding the values and prin-
ciples that liberal academics 
claim to support.
 
Whatever you may think of 
Trump or DeVos, the Jewish 
community should be standing 
with the administration on this 
issue. The failure to do so is 
nothing short of a disgrace. 

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of 

JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. 

ing that the Women’
s March 
could not bring itself to use the 
word “anti-Semitism” when 
it announced the removal of 
Billoo, instead cloaking Billoo’
s 
dismissal in politely vague 
claims that “some of her public 
statements [were] incompatible 
with the values and mission of 
the organization.
” 
While I am thrilled to see 
there is Jewish leadership in the 
new board, is it too bold to say 

I hope for the day that there can 
be loud, explicitly Zionist voices 
in the Women’
s March to show 
the world of feminism that 
progressivism and Zionism can 
coexist? Is that too much to ask?
Maybe it is today. But a small 
part of me cautiously believes 
that won’
t always be the case. 

Emily Shire is a journalist whose work 
has appeared in the New York Times, 
The Daily Beast, WashingtonPost.com, 
Slate and Salon.

ANTI-SEMITISM continued from page 10

WOMEN’
S MARCH continued from page 8

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