Jewish students are withdrawing from all aspects of university life, including lecture theatres, online learning spaces, seminar rooms and social activities in the face of growing antisemitism on British university campus amidst the Hamas-Israel conflict.
In the first report of its kind since it was established earlier this year, a poll by the Intra-Communal Professorial Group (ICPG) found that more than half of respondents reported being fearful of being on campus. Three-quarters were also uncomfortable to be open about their identity, with some feeling intimidated into not attending Jewish events, and not wearing things that would identify them as Jewish on campus.
The same survey suggests that as many as 79 per cent of Jewish students were at ease about disclosing their faith prior to the October 7th attacks, when the terrorist group Hamas committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the worst and most murderous single massacre against Jews since the holocaust.
There has also been up to 34 percentage points increase in rates of antisemitic abuse in universities over the same period. These include physical attacks, threats of rape, violence, verbal abuse, harassment, and use of Nazi imagery.
The ICPG formed earlier this year “in response to a significant rise of anti-Semitism across academia globally and in UK higher education”. It is made up of Jewish academics and chaired by Professor Anthony Julius, chairman of law and the arts at University College London (UCL).
The group’s latest report was written on behalf of ICPG by Professor Rosa Freedman (University of Reading) and Professor Laura Vaughan (UCL).
A total of 500 Jewish students were surveyed between May 29th and July 3rd, at the end of the last academic year. The ICPG said that while the poll was “not a formal statistical sample of the population”, making up about one in 18 of the 9,000 Jewish students in the UK, it was “broadly representative” of their experiences.
The report suggests “there has been a surge in anti-Semitic abuse at UK universities” over the past year, with many Jewish students reporting feeling unsafe walking past pro-Palestinian encampments.
Almost two-thirds – or 63 per cent – said they had witnessed fellow Jewish students being harassed “because they are Jewish”, including on social media and across campus. The percentage figure prior to October 7th was 28.4 per cent.
In total, 41 per cent said they had personally been subjected to such behaviour over the past year – almost double the 21 per cent who said they had experienced anti-Semitic abuse on campus in previous years.
The report also found that “small, but concerning numbers” of Jewish students said they had been physically attacked because of their religion, rising from 1.8 per cent to 5.2 per cent since 7th October. Fear for safety on campus also rose, from 17.1 per cent to over half, at 53.9 per cent.
Students reported physical attacks, including violence, being spat at after leaving a Jewish religious event, being “chased by a man with a large glass bottle”, having rubbish thrown at them, being pelted by eggs after hearing the Chief Rabbi speak on campus, and having their “Magen David” (Star of David) necklaces grabbed from around their necks.
Students also reported an increase in verbal threats of violence. These included threats being made from passing cars, passersby, or people known to the students.
One student encountered protestors in their building who called them “a Zionist Nazi” as they tried to move past a pro-Palestine protest.
Others were opportunistic incidents aimed at students who were visibly Jewish, including antisemitic slurs when walking past encampments, “several occasions of complete strangers making antisemitic remarks (e.g. “you’re a fucking pig” etc.) in passing”, and someone saying “Heil Hitler” and giving a Nazi salute.
A female master’s student said she was “spat at” for wearing “a JSoc [Jewish Society] jumper on campus”, the report said.
Also on the topic of student societies, a second year undergraduate reported that at her university, “[t]he Jewish Society stall was shut down due to safety concerns of security personnel due to the threats we were getting by the students and the crowd that was gathering around the stall. Students were harassing, shouting and swearing at us.”
Another second-year undergraduate said it was “made abundantly clear every single day that as a Jewish person who supports Israel’s right to exist, I am not welcome on campus”.
“Since Oct 7, it has been exhausting to be Jewish on campus, to feel like I can only express my identity to other Jews, to have to keep silent in all my classes about my identity, and to feel like I have to hide,” she added.
The ICPG said the survey results were “unsurprising in that they confirm what many people in higher education have reported having witnessed or experienced as occurring within UK universities”.
“The data demonstrates the scale of the problem, underscoring the pressing need to combat the surge in anti-Semitism over the past year across UK universities,” the group added.
It called on the Government to launch a special task force focused on combating antisemitism in UK universities, which would produce “a systemic and holistic strategy and approach that can be adopted in a context-specific way for individual universities”.
The ICPG’s report comes in the wake of Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s decision to sabotage the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, a vital piece of legislation designed to tackle cancel culture in English universities. Phillipson has since sought to justify this decision by recourse to the canard that the legislation risked enabling ‘hate speech’ and Holocaust denial on campus.
But this simply isn’t true. The definition of “freedom of speech” in the Act is that set out in Article 10(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Human Rights has consistently ruled that Article 17 of the ECHR excludes Holocaust denial from the purview of Article 10.
Nor would the new Act open the floodgates to other unlawful speech, given that it only protects free speech “within the law”. English law already provides strong protections against harassment and hate speech, e.g. the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, s.145-146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, Parts 3 and 3A of the Public Order Act 1986, s.1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1998, s.127 of the Communications Act 2003, s. 26 of the Equality Act 2010.
Just in case that wasn’t already enough for Ms Phillipson and her special advisors to be getting along with, Article 10(2) of the ECHR, as clarified and enforced through various European Court of Human Rights rulings – e.g., Handyside v the United Kingdom (1976), Sunday Times v the United Kingdom – allows for “legitimate” and “proportionate” interference with lawful speech by individual states.
Rather than detracting from any of the above provisions, the new Act actually contains provisions that would protect Jewish students and Jewish university societies from attempts by student unions and radical activists to sabotage their efforts to arrange meetings and invite external speakers on to campus.
Indeed, a clause in the new Act makes it much more difficult for universities to cite “security costs” as a reason to disinvite controversial speakers – an excuse previously used by City University for insisting a Jewish society rescind its invitation to Mark Regev, then Israel’s ambassador to the UK.
(The historian David Abulafia and other leading Jewish academics have provided compelling arguments as to why the Act is vital to protecting Jewish voices on campuses.)
That is in part why the Free Speech Union (FSU) has formally commenced legal proceedings against the government following its decision to stop this vital piece of legislation coming into force.
Thanks to the generous support of our members and supporters we filed a claim against the Education Secretary on 5th September. Our lawyers have put a powerful legal argument before the High Court. You can read our ‘Statement of Facts and Grounds’ here.
To increase our chances of rescuing this legislation, we need to keep up the pressure on MPs. Please use our campaigning tool (here) to write to your local MP, urging them to ask Phillipson to think again. Your voice matters and it’s vital that you make it heard.
As Akua Reindorf KC, the UK’s leading equality barrister, puts it, “this is not about petty ‘culture wars’; it’s about people’s lives, livelihoods and fundamental human rights”.
