On March 13, 2024, Jane Close Conoley, president of California State University, Long Beach, stated that it was “deeply upsetting” that flyers were created and posted around campus that week bearing the image of a professor and “characterizations purporting to represent his views related to the Hamas-Israel conflict.”
“I know these characterizations are false, and I experience them as antisemitic threats,” she stated at the time. “We have reached out to our faculty member to offer support, and I have also asked that the Office of Equity and Compliance review this matter.” She added that the school “must also reject Islamophobia and antisemitism.”
Jeffrey Blutinger, a history professor and director of Jewish studies at the public school, told JNS that he learned of the posters depicting him from a student. The posters called him a “genocide denier” and “violent Zionist,” and asked, “Is this the kind of faculty you want on campus?” according to photos that he shared with JNS.
But despite the statement from the school president, Blutinger told JNS that after reporting the posters to campus police, he was told that the latter lacks the “forensic capability” to check for fingerprints to determine who posted the materials.
“I don’t feel safe on campus,” he told JNS.
Blutinger was one of 209 Jewish professors at U.S. schools whom the Anti-Defamation League and Academic Engagement Network surveyed anonymously about experiencing Jew-hatred on campus, he told JNS.
More than 73% of respondents in the survey said that professors and staff at their schools engaged in Jew-hatred. More than half (50.2%) of those surveyed said there were “soft” or “shadow” boycotts on their campus. The survey describes such actions as “subtle but systematic forms of exclusion that often operate beneath the surface of official university policies.”
Of the 44% of respondents with a Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter on their campuses, 79.4% said that those chapters organize anti-Israel protests, and 84.8% said the chapters support campaigns to divest from Israel.
Among respondents, 55.2% said department heads refuse to co-sponsor events with Jewish or pro-Israel groups, 30.5% said events with Israeli speakers were denied or canceled, and 29.5% said their schools discourage or block partnerships with Israeli institutions and scholars.
More than one-fifth (21.1%) said their events were boycotted or disrupted, and 8.1% said their classes were boycotted. Some 13.4% were subjected to online smear campaigns, they said.
Of the Jewish professors who responded to the survey, 37.8% said they felt that they had to hide their Jewish or Zionist identities from others on campus, and of those who reported negative experiences as Jews on campus, 38.8% are considering leaving.
‘So much hostility’
Blutinger told JNS that the survey “confirms my own experience and the experience of my colleagues.”
“One of the things that really comes across from this survey is really how isolated the experience of Jewish faculty has been,” Blutinger said. “A lot of faculty are scared and keep their heads down.”
Departments at the school have sponsored events with antisemitic speakers, including one who said that “Jews are not a real people” and “Zionism and Nazism are twin cousins,” he told JNS. There have also been posters with pictures of students from the Hillel, where Blutinger is an adviser, “superimposed on a burning Israeli flag,” he said.
Professors are uncomfortable going to department meetings, “because there is so much hostility,” Blutinger told JNS. At the school’s liberal arts college, which he called “ground zero for antisemitism on campus,” some departments have just one tenured Jewish professor, according to Blutinger.
The worst experience was a February 2024 lecture that he was slated to give at San Jose State University about peace between Israelis and Palestinians. More than 100 protesters “besieged” the classroom, screaming and pounding on the floor, he told JNS. An associate dean at the school led the protests. Police told Blutinger and others to evacuate, he said.
“I don’t feel safe on campus. I don’t feel comfortable on campus. I don’t feel comfortable in the United States,” Blutinger, who plans to retire in two years and move to Israel, told JNS.
Jim Milbury, director of news media services at California State University Long Beach, told JNS that “when the campus has been made aware of incidents, we have endeavored to act promptly to support our Jewish faculty and students.”
“We acknowledge that difficult experiences have occurred on our campus, as they have at other institutions across the country, and we remain wholly committed to rejecting the hate of antisemitism and strengthening a campus climate that is safe and affirming for all,” he said.
