Mystery: Why Would Jewish UVA Students Feel Their Religion Is Not respected?
Deputy Provost Brie Gertler posed quite the conundrum to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors this afternoon: Ninety-two percent of UVA Jewish students felt valued as individuals in 2024, according to a poll by Student Experience in the Research University (SERU). But only 52% agreed that students sharing their religious beliefs were respected on Grounds. Indeed, the percentage of Jewish students feeling the love toward Judaism had declined sharply since the previous survey in 2022.
A similar gap existed for Muslim students, but it was much smaller. Seventy-five percent of Muslim students at UVA felt valued as individuals while only 66% perceived that Muslim students were getting respect. The percentage feeling positive vibes about their religion also declined from the previous year, though only half as much as it did for Jewish students.
The good news, which Gertler emphasized in her presentation, is that the percentage of Jews and Muslims feeling valued and respected was slightly higher at UVA than at four peer universities (University of Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and University of Texas-Austin).
But she was at a loss to explain how Jewish students at UVA could rate their individual experience so highly while feeling so down about the way their religion was perceived.
What, oh, what could be going on? Was it something in the way the survey questions were worded? Or, given the fact that only a fifth or so UVA students participated in the SERU survey, could there have been some kind of self-selection bias? Or, given the inherent variability in small sample sizes — only 99 Jewish students and 90 Muslims taking part in the survey — were the numbers randomly skewed?
No one seemed to have an answer. Let me throw this out there: Could the dizzying drop in positive vibes have been tied to the fact that the survey took place in March-April 2024, only a half year after Hamas launched its surprise terror attack on Israel? And the fact that Hamas and Israel still were locked in a war? And that pro-Palestinian groups at UVA were holding marches, demonstrations, and die-ins and accusing Israel of genocide? And that many people were blurring pro-Israel “Zionists” with Jews generally? And that dozens of UVA faculty had signed letters in support of the Palestinians? And that the student body had voted to demand UVA divest its endowment of Israeli assets and cut ties with Israeli scholars? And that antisemitic slurs were on the rise? And that many Jewish students felt so cowed that they hid signs of their ethnic identity such as stars of David?
“We have to understand this. We’re just getting the data now. It’s a huge question for UVA and our peers,” said Provost Ian Baucom. “It seems to be a national issue.”
Yes, indeed, it is a national issue. And any person with the sense of a gerbil, which apparently excludes many people with Ph.D.s, knows exactly what the explanation was. Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations were taking place across the country. Anti-Israel vitriol was endemic. For many Jews, whose ethnic identity is inextricably entwined with Israel, the assaults on Israel were perceived, fairly or unfairly, as assaults on Jews generally.
Let me advance a proposition. There is no contradiction in the SERU data. Jewish students can thrive as individuals at UVA even in the fact of extreme hostility from a vocal minority. Most Jewish students say they feel valued because they are excelling academically, have strong relations with professors, and have loads of gentile friends. But they see the demonstrations, and they see the slogans scrawled in chalk, and they read the fliers, and they take note of the open letters, and many draw the conclusion that their ethnicity, which is synonymous with their religion, is under attack.
This appears to be beyond the ken of senior members of the Ryan administration. Rather than face the obvious — that the most virulent prejudice on Grounds comes from the militant left — UVA leadership convened a Religious Diversity and Belonging Task Force and framed the problem as one of religious discrimination against Jews and Muslims equally, as if the prejudice was emanating amorphously from society as a whole.
Here, according to Gertler’s presentation, are the remedies the Task Force devised to address the problem (my boldface):
We hired a dedicated Civil Rights Response Coordinator in the Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights office.
We hired a program coordinator for interfaith engagement in Student Affairs.
We are participating in Hillel’s Campus Climate Initiative, an intensive yearlong program aimed at developing strategies for countering antisemitism and building a campus climate in which Jewish students feel comfortable expressing their identity.
We engaged Muslim Campus Life, a small group of Muslim scholars from peer institutions, to offer a workshop for a broad group of staff members on recognizing and combatting Islamophobia.
We are developing student orientation training regarding the University’s discrimination and harassment policy, which will include education and awareness regarding antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Unbelievable. If these people were physicians, they’d be diagnosing a burst appendix as a brain aneurism.
Developing strategies for “countering antisemitism” and helping Jewish students feel comfortable “expressing their identity?” Really?
Antisemitism in the overall UVA student body is exceedingly rare — with the main exception of radical leftists embracing the Palestinian cause and conflating Jews with Zionists. Jewish students didn’t feel uncomfortable “expressing their identity” at UVA until Oct. 7, 2023 — when Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israeli innocents and leftist militants took up the Palestinian cause.
As for the nonsense of “recognizing and combatting Islamophobia”… What Islamophobia? Seventy-five percent of UVA Muslims feel like they’re valued as individuals, and two-thirds say their religion is respected. I’d happily wager that the disaffected minority is overwhelmingly leftist politically and has imbibed heavily from the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-settler woke-babble so prevalent in in the humanities. Leftist Muslims are primed to view themselves as victims.
Fortunately, a few members of the Board of Visitors expressed skepticism.
David Okonkwo said he wanted to take a deep dive into the methodology of the SERU survey before giving any credence to the results. “This is a tricky thing to unpack. I don’t think we have an existential crisis here.”
Until the board has a better understanding of the numbers presented, said Stephen Long, “I’m not prepared to go anywhere with this.”
Referring to the bullet-pointed remedies, Bert Ellis said, “I see a lot of words and a lot of administrative overhead, but not anything that’s going to do anything.”
The next SERU survey is scheduled for 2026.
James A. Bacon is the founder of Bacon’s Rebellion and a contributing editor with The Jefferson Council.
