Harvard University, Columbia University, Barnard College and Michigan State University were among the schools where some classes were reportedly canceled last week in response to former President Donald Trump winning the presidential election.

The fact that these universities did so angered “their Jewish peers, who were offered no such grace during months of anti-Israel campus protests where participants openly praised Hamas and hurled genocidal slogans after Oct. 7,” the New York Post reported.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former president of nearly 30 years at George Washington University and University of Hartford and author of the book Presidencies Derailed: Why University Leaders Fail and How to Prevent It, thinks that “Columbia wants to do the right thing but finds itself pulled in conflicting directions.”

“Unprecedented circumstances have left them with no North Star to chart,” he told JNS.

“They face challenges from multiple constituencies and don’t know how to respond,” Trachtenberg added. “This is a novel experience for them.”

The prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus of law at Harvard University, told JNS that it is “inappropriate” for Columbia to support the cancellation of classes in response to the election.

“The university should not allow professors to cancel classes because of such reasons, and I highly doubt they would have canceled if Harris had won the election,” he said, of Vice President Kamala Harris. “It is the complete introduction of politics into the school curriculum and universities need to remain neutral.”

“Students need to learn to cope,” he added. “When I was teaching at Harvard during Sept. 11, the university canceled classes. I told my students to defy university policy and come to class because we needed to talk about what happened.” 

“If I were a student at a university that allowed this I would demand a tuition rebate proportionate to the class that was canceled,” Dershowitz added.

Shoshana Afuzien, a freshman at Barnard College, told JNS that a professor’s decision to cancel classes post-election represented a clear double standard for Jewish students. 

“When Jewish students are targeted or doxxed by their peers, they’re afforded no such grace,” she told JNS. “The moment Trump won the election, professors canceled classes citing ‘emotional duress.’” (Being “doxxed” means having one’s personal information published.)

“If a professor wishes to cancel class, that’s their prerogative,” she said. “But let’s not kid ourselves—this is a glaring indefensible double standard.”

A Columbia freshman who identified himself only as Ethan told JNS that there was no double standard, “because way more students were impacted by the election than by Oct. 7,” but that universities shouldn’t cancel class as a matter of principle.

“This is obviously comparing apples and oranges. Oct. 7 was an actual, devastating day. The election was the election,” he said, noting that some people are being “overly sensitive.” (He referred in derogatory fashion to President-elect Donald Trump.)

“That’s still not a valid reason to cancel classes,” he said.

Canceling classes because students are upset about election results suggests a troubling lack of intellectual diversity on campus, according to the freshman. “This school needs to teach people how to think critically,” he said.

Columbia told JNS that no classes on campus were officially canceled after the election. JNS sought further comment from the university about posts on social media, in which screenshots purported to show that professors had told students they could play hookey.

Ari Shrage, head of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, told JNS that the university should be more consistent in its policies. 

“For the university to claim that there were no reports of canceled classes and it was all business as usual is like living in propaganda land,” he told JNS. “The university needs to implement a strict policy regarding what justifies cancellation of a class, rather than having any professor do what they want because an event doesn’t conform to their worldview—like the results of a U.S. presidential election.”

“Students pay $90,000 a year to get educated, and there needs to be a uniform policy where either every time something bad happens in the world, professors are allowed to cancel class, or they are not and there are consequences to that,” he added.