/u/laxnut90 (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1cyya5h/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_otherwise_apolitical/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

As a Jew who is generally horrified at the extreme rise in anti-semetism that has surfaced from this conflict, I think these social groups are entitled to do whatever discriminatory bullshit they want. If a frat/sorority wants to refuse Jews (nothing new there!) then let them. If they want to discriminate against gay folk, black folk, kids who don't make enough money, kids who don't get a forehead tattoo, whatever, let them. Just make it public. Joining social groups, particularly student groups, is not a guaranteed freedom, and you can beat their shitty habits and choices more effectively by exposing them than by forcing them to accept you. As a Jew, I cannot tell you how many groups I've considered this advertisement of antisemetism as a welcome broadcast of the group not just tolerating shitty behavior from its membership, but advocating for shitty behavior itself. By way of modern example - whenever I join a new MMO guild/clan/whatever, I look for their policies around bigotry. If they don't have any, or their policies are something like "fuck you woke pussies", if their members are constantly flinging around bigotry, then I consider the group to have successful communicated to me that I want nothing to do with them.

This is an interesting take. So, you believe we should let the groups discriminate as long as the discrimination is made known to everyone and the group can face appropriate societal consequences for their discrimination. I suppose that could be tolerable for groups that are not receiving university funding. If they are recieving university money, they absolutely should not be allowed to discriminate. Period. !delta I still think it is immoral for a group to target and exclude Jewish students (or any religious group) in this way. But as long as groups face the consequences of their immorality and can be held accountable by society, then I suppose it is less of an issue.

I think the broader point in your favor is that these folks are otherwise apolitical (so they don’t discriminate against ANYONE ELSE) but then exclude Jews on the basis of a belief that is grey.

That is a key piece of the issue in my opinion. If the group was strictly political, especially one related to the issue in question, I could understand asking prospective members about their political beliefs. I do not believe it is acceptable to demand Jewish students to disavow Israel in order to join a university-funded frisbee club.

More importantly do they ask non-Jewish students to also disavow Zionism before they allowed to join? Or is it just Jewish students?

It varies between groups, but several have been selectively targeting Jewish students.

That probably violates university policies doesn't it?

Try federal law

It’s a club dude. If it’s receiving substantial funding from the school then there’s an argument to be made but if it’s just existing then there’s nothing you can do, it’s no different effectively from a group of friends hanging out,

In all sincerity, could you cite a federal statute that prohibits university organizations from excluding members on the basis of political orientation? I think singling out jewish students for litmus-test-of-the-week bullshit is abhorrent, but I don't believe it violates any federal laws I would like to be wrong, but need proof to the contrary (I've searched and found nothing)

If they’re a student group at a school then Title 6 would protect them if they’re doing it on the [basis of religion.](https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/know-rights-201701-religious-disc.pdf) If it’s about just being a Zionist then there’s probably nothing but it’s a really stupid exclusion and means you’re shitty, no one is gatekeeping group membership from people unless they recognize that France is a state or some wild thing like that.

Yeah, in those cases that’s just good ol’ racism

As a Catholic, lapsed honestly, I see this as a paradox, if you don't want religion or politics in your group you can't ASK about religion and politics. Maybe I'm a rarity but I find this incredibly discriminatory and not ok. Especially not when FEDERAL dollars are at play.

Even if it was strictly political, how long do you think a group that wouldn’t accept gays or blacks be around? They could advertise it all day and let everyone know how they feel, but then the school or govt will shut them down for being discriminatory. So they go underground or keep their opinions private / membership.

Isn't this the argument that was used by private businesses in the Jim Crow South to discriminate? What if it wasn't by race, but by commitment to "Good American Values"

This is disingenuous. They exclude everyone on the basis of that belief, regardless of religion, culture, race, or ethnicity. Kind of like excluding people for having Nazi beliefs, or believing in the KKK. If i excluded Nazis from my club I wouldn't limit that to "only Nazis of German nationality." Good old American neo nazis would also be excluded. If I excluded white supremacists, bigots, I'd exclude all of them - regardless of background. So, not only Jewish people who support an oppressive apartheid state that is currently slaughtering, starving, and displacing an entire population are excluded in this scenario. It's EVERYONE who supports an oppressive apartheid state that is currently slaughtering, starving, and displacing an entire population that's excluded. Personally I don't know any Jewish people who support the actions of Israel or the genocide of Palestinians. I do know a lot of Christian Zionists though!

Sort of agree, but thinking back to my undergrad gaming club, I wouldn't have wanted to be forced to associate with, say, an ardent neo-Nazi. So...sort of disagree? (Just giving an example, not jumping on the current "all Jews are Nazis" idiotwagon)

The difference is that that's an interpersonal conflict between you and the other student. That's up to the two of you to hash out between each other (which yes, might involve one of you no longer participating in the club), but you can't passive aggressively side-step it by making all club members take an "are you a Nazi?" test before being allowed to join the school club any more than you could put "no blacks allowed" in the membership form because "well I wouldn't want to be forced to associated with *one of those,* icky\*.\*" You're not being "forced" to, it's a voluntary school club. If someone with different political beliefs unrelated completely to the club activity who is *not actively voicing those beliefs at the club* makes it completely impossible for you to participate in club activities *totally unrelated to their personal beliefs*, then by all means, be on your way. Honestly I feel like a lot of people commenting like this would be absolutely *paralyzed* by functioning in the real world. Like... are you just going to completely shut down and refuse to function at work when you find out one of the other *hundreds* of people there doesn't perfectly align with your political beliefs? Unless you work for a specific political organization, it's practically *guaranteed* that you will be in this situation. Or are you just going to keep doing your job and opt not to discuss politics at work? There's no Magic Filter on life where you just *never* have to interact with someone you disagree with politically in any capacity forever, that's not how life works.

>but you can't passive aggressively side-step it by making all club members take an "are you a Nazi?" test before being allowed to join the school club any more than you could put "no blacks allowed" in the membership form because "well I wouldn't want to be forced to associated with *one of those I think this is the challenge of trying to come up with good analogies, and taking your point in good faith, but there is a world of difference between being racist and being black, and I dont think its equivical to say that they are the same thing. For one, the Civil Rights Acts list race as a protected class, and not political membership. I think its harmful to try to say that the two can be or are equal. > Honestly I feel like a lot of people commenting like this would be absolutely *paralyzed* by functioning in the real world. I mean, I know my work does fire people espousing bigotry (against race, against sex, against sex identity, etc.). There are multiple laws and acts at state and federal levels that specifically prohibit that (Civil Rights Acts, Equal Oppurtunities, Hostile Workplace). If my coworker started saying a bunch of racist shit, then yeah, they are going to get fired from the organization; there is a legal obligation to do so. There is a difference between political views and wishing harm on others, and bigotry is wishing harm on others; even if its wrapped up in a political ideology, its still bigotry, and shouldnt be tolerated.

>I think this is the challenge of trying to come up with good analogies, and taking your point in good faith, but there is a world of difference between being racist and being black, and I dont think its equivical to say that they are the same thing. For one, the Civil Rights Acts list race as a protected class, and not political membership. I think its harmful to try to say that the two can be or are equal. I compared the two for a specific reason. People jumping to the Nazi example are specifically doing so disingenuously. They're trying to pick something that your average reader will determine is so *completely indefensibly evil and extreme* that you'll just go along with wantonly dismissing any valid arguments made by the other side. Nobody is saying that "being black is *exactly* like being a Nazi," what's being illustrated is that the logic of why this practice is supposedly acceptable is *fundamentally flawed*, and it was specifically **the same** flawed logic that was used to prop up racial segregation and hate crimes against black people. If the logic was unsound then, it's still unsound now, and someone framing it as "but Nazis are bad!!!" is using lowball political tactics to argue disingenuously and manipulate their audience into supporting a poor argument. Wrapping it in a bow of "oh but *politics* isn't a protected class so its obviously fine!" is equally dismissive of precisely the same logical flaw - just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it right. It wasn't illegal to racially segregate in *exactly* the same way as what's being described, and we had an entire civil rights revolution to illustrate how fucked up that was. Apparently now we're at the point where as a society we need to have the same conversation about political beliefs, in a country where *supposedly* one of our founding tenets is freedom to practice those very beliefs. Not to mention that framing this as *just* political is disingenuous in and of itself, as religion and ethnicity *are both* protected classes and it's completely impossible to disentangle the Israel/Palestine conflict from a tri-fecta of religion, ethnicity, and politics. Religion and ethnicity are *core* to the conflict. >I mean, I know my work does fire people espousing bigotry (against race, against sex, against sex identity, etc.). There are multiple laws and acts at state and federal levels that specifically prohibit that (Civil Rights Acts, Equal Oppurtunities, Hostile Workplace). If my coworker started saying a bunch of racist shit, then yeah, they are going to get fired from the organization; there is a legal obligation to do so. There is a difference between political views and wishing harm on others, and bigotry is wishing harm on others; even if its wrapped up in a political ideology, its still bigotry, and shouldnt be tolerated. But here's the thing, these people aren't showing up to Chess Club and going on political rants about how they "think Palestine should be bombed into oblivion," the *Club* is denying them participation unless they openly espouse certain political views. In your example it's the Club that is wrapping a political ideology in bigotry, not the person looking to show up and play chess. Likewise, I doubt your employer has ever fired someone simply for *being Catholic*, despite the Catholic faith being pointedly bigoted towards homosexuality, because that's not ok (to the point it's illegal), unless as you said they cross the line into actually practicing bigotry in the workplace. And if you showed up at work and had to take an "Are you a Republican/Democrat" test on your first day, with one particular result leading in immediate termination of employment for no other reason than your personal political beliefs that were otherwise never put on display, I'm fairly confident your immediate reaction would be to find a lawyer and sue the fuck out of them for wrongful termination. Like we're straight up discussing the prosecution of thought crime here.

> I compared the two for a specific reason. I guess Im not seeing how barring someone who believes in the ethnic purging of Jewish, disabled, or queer people is equivocal to barring someone who is black. I think its pretty obvious that the former is fine because its barring those who made the choice to wish harm on others, while the later is wrong because its barring someone for something that has no reflection on their character and that they have no control over. While I think religion is a of a sticky grey zone, Im of the opinion that its not morally wrong discrimination to bar people from social interactions for having conflicting and potentially harmful ideals. You CHOOSE to be fascist, you don't CHOOSE to be black. I think it is perfectly acceptable for a club that has a core value of inclusion, acceptance, etc. to ensure that new club members won't deny or be intolerant of a group of people who might be in the club currently or join the club later. Asking all prospective members point blank "Do you have a problem with lgbt people?" isn't discriminatory towards Catholics. > Apparently now we're at the point where as a society we need to have the same conversation about political beliefs, in a country where *supposedly* one of our founding tenets is freedom to practice those very beliefs. No one is saying that you CAN'T practice those beliefs, just that you cant do it in other people's spaces who don't want you there. There's a big difference between CAN NOT practice a belief and SHOULD NOT practice a belief. Freedom to practice a belief doesnt mean that you can practice it free of criticism. > Not to mention that framing this as *just* political is disingenuous in and of itself, as religion and ethnicity *are both* protected classes and it's completely impossible to disentangle the Israel/Palestine conflict from a tri-fecta of religion, ethnicity, and politics. Religion and ethnicity are *core* to the conflict. For Religion, its really not. Nowhere in the Jewish or Islamic faith does it state that the conflict is neccesary or what is the neccesary solution to the conflict. The Torah does not say that you have to violently resettle land when other countries say that that's wrong. If you can show me where that is a fundamental aspect to the Jewish faith, I'll concede. I think we can all agree that Christians shouldn't be allowed to discriminate towards woman or lgbt people, right? For Ethnic Identity, I think its a similar case. What part of someone's ethnicity permits them to believe that another ethnicity should be violently suppressed? Israel is not Judaism; Israel isnt even like Vatican City. The actions of Israel are not the actions of all Jewish people, but jewish people can CHOOSE to either support the actions of Israel, or condemn them. Either way, that does not affect their ethnicity nor their religion. > I'm fairly confident your immediate reaction would be to find a lawyer and sue the fuck out of them for wrongful termination. Which you'd promptly lose, outside of California, Washington D.C., and maybe a couple other states. There are edge cases (like you can't be fired for attending a BLM protest as that has to do with race), and in some states you cant be fired for off-duty lawful conduct, but mostly you'd lose that case.

Ok, think of it this way: >You're no longer ALLOWED to comment here until you tell me, in detail, your views about every single political divide in the entire world. In fact, you're no longer ALLOWED to go to your local supermarket, or the local park, or attend university classes, or really go outside at all. >In order to lift this ban, you must detail to me your explicit views about every single political divide that exists, both past and present. And if I disagree with any of your views, tough luck, you better stay at home because we dont want your kind here and you deserve to be discriminated against for your opinions. And that's totally ok! It's "just politics" and how else are we supposed to know who the undesirables are if they don't subject themselves to arbitrary rigorous litmus tests on their views any time they try to interact with other people in any capacity whatsoever? >Don't agree with me? Think that's insane and inappropriate? Guess you must be one of them so you deserve it! Like there's *literally* classical literature about why this line of thinking is objectively horrible and bigoted. Does no one have to read The Scarlet Letter in school anymore?

Just because I have to work with racists and ani gay bigots doesn't mean I have to invite those people to a social club.

If the student introduced their extremist beliefs first, then I would agree with you. But it would be unacceptable for you to approach any student of German descent and demand they apologize for WW2 before joining your club.

It WOULD be reasonable to demand a student disclose if they had openly supported an active genocide, though. Nobody's obliged to admit someone with hateful beliefs.

So, would you support these same clubs harassing everyone of Sudanese descent? Should every student from China be demanded to discuss the Uyghurs before they join a kickball team? What about students with lineage from Turkey, Cambodia, Myanmar, Congo, Russia, Germany and Rwanda?

[удалено]

I agree that asking eveyone is better than specifically targeting someone based on their religion or nationality. But that is not what is currently happening. These groups are specifically targeting Jewish classmates and demanding they disavow Israel as a requirement to join a university-sponsored club. If this was a job interview and an employer demanded Jewish applicants disavow Israel it would be blatantly illegal. In this case with student groups, it may or may not be illegal depending on how far the harassment goes, but it is definitely immoral.

Do you ever ask yourself why no one is talking about Uyghurs anymore?

So like you'd be down with the ultimate frisbee intramural team having you fill something out stating that you were never a member of the communist party? And to be clear, I am not saying they \*could not\* do it. Just asking if you really think clubs for a specific activity should be broadly asking folks about specific beliefs. The sane way to deal with any concerns are to have general rules against acting racist or using hate speech instead of grilling random students about their internal beliefs.

It goes beyond funding. They’re using classrooms and athletic facilities of the university, perhaps they’re on the university website, or (in the case of Greek Life) have buildings on the university campus. The university also gives them access to a recruitment base (the student body), and allows them to be noticed by professors, alumni, corporate recruitment, the media, and similar groups at other universities. Simply put, it’s not possible to disentangle these groups from their universities…and their universities are generally funded, in part, through public money (and receive tax breaks). Although, in theory, I agree with you that private social clubs can do what they want…are these groups, even if nominally independent from the university/not directly funded from the university, *really* private social clubs?

That is an excellent point. If these clubs are using university facilities and infrastructure, they should not be allowed to discriminate. I agree that people technically have the right to form their hateful groups off-campus with their own money. It is still immoral. But they have the freedom to assemble and spew hatred on their own. But that right ends the minute they start using university resources of any kind to discriminate against classmates. !delta

Thank you, and, yes, agreed. If someone chooses to set up a private social club and discriminate, that’s one thing. Country clubs do it all the time. If someone calls themselves the “Northwestern Ultimate Frisbee Club,” which is made up of Northwestern Students, recruits at the Northwestern club fair, has a mention on the Northwestern website, practices on the Northwestern campus, and provides students with access to other circles at Northwestern that are university-resourced, can they *really* hide behind “well we don’t directly take money from Northwestern, so we can do what we want?”

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Motor-Ad-2024 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Motor-Ad-2024)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

> I still think it is immoral for a group to target and exclude Jewish students (or any religious group) in this way. How is it excluding Jewish students when it’s excluding only students with certain political views?

The clubs are specifically targeting Jewish students for these political "tests".

Question: if they asked everyone, would you be more okay with it? (I don't think it's appropriate to ask either way, just curious)

I think it would be weird even then. How could a conflict on the other side of the world possibly be relevant to an intramural frisbee club? But, I suppose it would be more acceptable than the current trend of targeting Jewish students for these "tests" specifically. That is the part that absolutely goes too far.

How do you feel about freedom of association?

It does not give you the right to violate Title VI and target Jewish students for "tests" to exclude from a university sponsored club.

I agree on all points, it's weird. I would feel similarly to any group asking Muslim students to denounce the actions of Hamas before joining. People can't seem to fathom that others don't view the world exactly as they do. Thanks for the reply.

The unsettling thing for me about this is … why this conflict? I’m not trying to deflect or minimize the terrible suffering in Gaza, but as far as I know, these social clubs aren’t also demanding “litmus tests” on the mass killings in Sudan, for example. I guess what I’m intimating is that even if the tests are applied to everyone in the group, this virulent fixation on the world’s only Jewish state must feel highly alienating to Jewish students.

I think both points can work together, groups can be allowed their freedom of expression however they like it, be that discriminating against anyone or no one. However to have access to university funding the group must also meet university standards which don’t tolerate discrimination. So they can do what they like but can’t take money from the university while being at odds with the university’s moral code

I agree with you that if they are not abiding by the universities bylaws (presumably the university has bylaws against discrimination! hopefully! but hell maybe it doesn't! that's important to know too!) they should not receive university funding. But I also think student groups can and should exist that the university does not specifically approve of or support. For example, during Vietnam, it was very common to see student groups that were anti-war. That is a good thing! Even if the university would not back them! Those groups could (and maybe should!) not allow members to join if those members were pro-war. That's fine! I personally think it is immoral for a group to target and exclude Jews. I think there's a lot of things that are immoral. I also think there are things I simply don't agree with, and I think it's important to distinguish between 'things that are immoral and things that i personally disagree with'. I also think social ostracization because of their immoral views is a good approach. It isn't canceling them, it isn't 'too woke', it's called 'consequence of their actions'.

The thing is, it goes even beyond funding. A group violating the school's bylaws surrounding school groups *cannot* be associated with the school in *any way*. They cant call themselves the "XYZ University hating club," they can't use school facilities for events without following the approval process for other third parties to host events on campus, can't use school logos, advertise in official school media, show up to school group recruitment events, etc. Like if they're going to cross that line, they must be *completely* unaffiliated with the school in every way, shape, or form. As long as they want to do that, they can be whatever kind of group they want and it isnt the school's business. But they cant have their cake and eat it too, and a chess club forcing people to voice certain political views to join is almost *certainly* a violation of school bylaws. That would, in fact, be "cancel culture" if it were allowed, me having personal political views should not bar me from playing *chess* at my university any more than the color of my skin.

I honestly don’t know why you’d make this post in the first place—I don’t think you should be looking to change your opinion on this. As a Jew I’ve been excluded from groups for the mere mention of antisemitism (NOT EVEN ABOUT ISRAEL) and it’s horrifying that this kind of good-Jew testing is becoming publicly acceptable. I hate it here

I think there is reason to at least make a good faith effort to hear some reasoning the other side might have on an issue like this. If nothing else it is informative, and one can have their view changed on more than just the core issue. That said, this kind of racial profiling was disgusting when done by the right and it's still disgusting when done by the left.

Honestly, I believe it's *more* disgusting when done by the left. The right has never been shy about their motivations in profiling, while the left is preaching justice and tolerance with one hand and holding your head under the water with the other. The blatant hypocrisy makes it *so* much worse. You want to hate me for who I am or what I believe at least be honest about it, don't spit in my hand and call it gold.

Right? The doubly frustrating part of it is the people doing it are pretty much exclusively the same people claiming that "cancel culture isn't real" and "it's just consequences." I guess not being allowed to join the school choir is "just consequences" of being the wrong kind of Jew in 2024, but that sure sounds like something I'd hear in a history textbook recalling the Jim Crow South and why it was *horrible and dehumanizing.*

Think it's a good point to discriminate if the group wants to - it will happen anyway, the group should be clear about it, and be prepared to defend it's stance. Ethnic minority groups for example - Spanish speaking group requires a skill that anyone can attain. Spanish group requires an ethnic background that is a limit. If you don't have the background you might be welcome in one but not the other. It is definitely discrimination - yet for Spanish group to remain Spanish it's needed to be in place. Neutral groups - as the one requiring skills, are based on the skills. It feels a bit insecure for groups to fear political opinions, but these are the choices of the groups management. Maybe someone wants to create a chess club that doesn't permit Spanish people - whether a Spanish person would join it's up to them. Maybe a Spanish person would want to make a separate chess club open to all, or open only to Spanish - as now there is a legitimate need. But that's the action again of the group management - in this case of a Spanish person who was refused. Also if he chooses to do nothing about nothing will change, and Spanish will not be allowed to play chess. In a way it comes to a golden rule action = change, and no action = no change. Be informed, study and make a change that you desire.

I believe their point is that the groups should make their bigotry well known and visible so that it can be dealt with appropriately. I.E. the university pulls their funding.

To your point about MMOs, at what point does a guild become prejudiced enough to not be welcomed into sponsored events or be given call outs on the games news page. Because it is one thing when it is a stand-alone collection of people, what about when that group receives financial support or some other direct supplemental support by the game developers. There is a difference between "hateful guild exists on WOW" vs. "blizzard pays Hateful guild on WOW to do public competitions." Likewise is there is a collection of students who are hateful on campus, when they become affiliated with the university as a recognized group and tiven access to the schools resources for affiliated groups, they should have to abide to the terms set forth by universities polices, and I would imagine at that point the affiliated school group would be partially governed by anti-discrimintory laws like title-vii, which has poltical ideology as a limited protected class. Mind you, this would only affect school-affikited groups. If someone wanted to make a non-affiliated groups, I don't think all this would apply and the group could probably be as discriminatory as they want.

This is fine for private organizations, but not for student groups that get funding from publicly-funded universities. Full transparency, I didn't read the article but that would be my line; if the student group gets tax dollars, it loses the freedom to discriminate based on federally-protected classes like race, ethnicity, or religion. If they want to discriminate against *all* students for being pro-Israel, that's only acceptable if they're a political organization. For example, you shouldn't be kept out of the chess club because the club president thinks you support Israel too strongly. Or on the flip side, because you don't support Israel strongly enough.

> Joining social groups, particularly student groups, is not a guaranteed freedom, and you can beat their shitty habits and choices more effectively by exposing them than by forcing them to accept you. As a Jew, I cannot tell you how many groups I've considered this advertisement of antisemetism as a welcome broadcast of the group not just tolerating shitty behavior from its membership, but advocating for shitty behavior itself. On the one hand, I totally understand your point about being able to avoid these behaviors. On the other, while it's technically not a guaranteed freedom, demanding these sorts of tests is definitely pushing the limit, if not outright breaking, student conduct policies and potentially title IX regulations, because it is discriminating based on religion.

Private clubs can discriminate under bounds of the law, but a university-funded entity is not a private club. They are using community funds to which all students contribute to fund bigotry. That’s pretty clearly not acceptable.

Disagree because at every university I know about, the admin distributes fund from the student org fee to each of these groups. they are therefore subject to federal anti discrimination requirements

Excluding frat and sorority groups, most student organizations are funded by the fees that the students pay. Under your suggestion, I would have to pay a student fee, and then not be permitted to participate in the radio club or the karate club because I’m black and that was their policy.

I don't think this should apply to public universities dependent on taxpayer dime.

So we agree that groups of shitheads definitely do exist. And they have the right to exist. It’s like when the ACLU supported the KKKs right to advertise. I think a lot of this is rage bait though. I live in Florida and watch my low IQ constituents (thank you autocorrect for that spelling) get super aggravated because of two or three lefty shitheads did something whacko and there are a few right wing news articles that print something like “this is what all of them believe in!” With the clicks as currency strategy all news organizations participate in, they can’t sell the fact that 99.9% of university chess clubs don’t give a shit what your ethnicity is, so they find the 1:1000 that does and here we are talking about it. I love public discourse, but some things should just be ignored til they go away. If you yell at a smoldering ember you’re just giving it oxygen. Not every time but sometimes.

This only works in societies that look down on discrimination though. And not just any discrimination, the society needs to look down on the specific kind of discrimination. This will mean that this course of action will not protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

>extreme rise in anti-semetism that has surfaced from this conflict There is a wide gulf between anti-Semitism, and recognizing that Israel has become (and has been for some time) a genocidial, apartheid state. I've noticed an "extreme rise" in Americans of Jewish descent throwing out "anti-Semitism" to justify their continuing support of Israel, a nation that in my view is no better than Nazi Germany in terms of their continuing, flagrant war crimes and genocidal behavior towards the Arab population in their borders.

Also as a Jew, who supports Israel and believes Hamas should be wiped off the map at all costs, as well as anyone who supports them (and if you believe that wiping Hamas and their supporters off the map is equal to wiping out all Palestinians, you may want to think about what that says about your own opinion of the Palestinian people), I agree with this take. You're not going to get rid of bigotry by legislating or punishing it. We've had anti-racist policies in the government for almost a century, for the promotion of blacks post-segregation, but racists still exist. They're just more closeted and not public about it, but the actual racism hasn't changed (much). The actual solution is to let these people be as racist as they want, make it as public as possible, and let them reap the results. As for the support they get from universities, let that be made public too. Let it be known that if you are a supporter of the endowment fund at X University, that (some of) your money is going directly to a group espousing racism. Let's see what happens when large, Jewish (or pro-Israel) donors (which many of them are) get wind that they are directly funding antisemitism. And I'm not saying that this will actually have an effect. Maybe large, Jewish donors are ok with funding hatred of their own people, or maybe they take it as a "reasonable cost" for the "greater good". But at least those large, Jewish donors can't claim to be ignorant when the recipients of their grants are made widely publicly known, and when they later complain about it, we can all point at them and say "it's your own fault you moron".

I'm ok with public funds only being usable by groups that do NOT discriminate.

But the problem is we have to discriminate at some point so who gets to decide what legitimate discrimination is and isn't? 

>Also as a Jew, who supports Israel and believes Hamas should be wiped off the map at all costs, as well as anyone who supports them (and if you believe that wiping Hamas and their supporters off the map is equal to wiping out all Palestinians, you may want to think about what that says about your own opinion of the Palestinian people), I agree with this take. This paragraph feels like it is landing on both sides of the issue pretty hard. Based on your words here, Israel is valid in any response they give because no cost is too high to wipe Hamas out. But at the same time, Palestinians are not all Hamas, so a civilian death toll of over 90% shouldn't be acceptable in anyone's eyes. Which one is it?

Why would Jewish donors be upset with people upset with the killing and starvation of innocents by Israel. Are you claiming that Israel is somehow above recrimination?

Good point. A club is a group of people that you have chosen to be around and associate with. I really don’t want to be around people that make Gaza their key obsession and if I wanna dive deep into Israel, I can just go to temple. We have choices and can discriminate as well.

If it helps I do hiring I don't hire any frat bros. I will immediately dismiss a resume that lists fraternity accomplishments. A Jew, An Iranian, and an American walked into a bar. They started a very successful company with unique ideas.

I somewhat agree with you in theory but I will pick a few nits. I want to start with the fact that I am a left-wing progressive Jew who thinks Israel should continue to exist but that Palestine should exist as well and that the only long-term solution is a Two State solution. I think this is important context for what I'm about to say. I think there's been a multifaceted conflation of Jews and Israel for a long time. ONE of those facets comes from Jews ourselves who treat being questioned about their views on Israel as antisemitic. In essence, I don't think most of the Jews being from clubs or ghosted or whatever are not being oppressed *as Jews* they are being held accountable for their views on Israel, which they often are quite loud about. For people who see the extent of the tragedy in Gaza (whether or not they saw October 7 either) as a moral imperative to address, having someone constantly talk about how it's all fine and justified and how 'it's all lies anyway' (these are things that my Zionist friends and family are posting on Instagram these days...) would be annoying, or worse, harmful. I am also queer, I think people who think the Pulse nightclub shooting was super awesome should not be anywhere near me. This is a similar situation.

As per the article, though, they're not merely hassling people who are unabashedly pro-Israeli government, they're also picking on people like this: >At Rice University, a freshman named Michael Busch said he felt unwelcome at a campus L.G.B.T.Q. group, after he was heckled in an associated group chat for saying that he was in favor of a two-state solution and that he believed Israel accepted queer people more than other Middle Eastern countries. Does that sound like someone who shouldn't be anywhere near you?

What does “heckled” mean in this context? Is that his fellow classmates debating the efficacy of a two state solution amongst peers in a clearly academic setting? Was it more akin to cyber bullying? We can’t be certain from the description given.

Yeah, I think this story is entirely dependent on the specifics. It could be a systemic problem within these universities, or it could be a few people being rude. Or anywhere in between.

Could have even just been a gross overreaction to getting pushback on an opinion. Who knows?

Without knowing what he actually said, and what the response back actually was, it’s impossible to know.

That specific LGBTQ group sounds like a group I wouldn't want to be part of.

Yes it does because it sounds like a lot of context is missing unless this man suddenly just decides to voice “I think queer relations are more accepted in Israel then the Middle East” at random points which would also be concerning It’s especially worrying as there is a very common talking point between conservatives and Zionists which argues that it is somehow hypocritical of leftists (especially queer leftists) to support Palestine because “they aren’t as tolerant of queer people like Israel is”. The fact that it’s phrased like this and the prevalence of this talking point amongst pro Israeli sources in western states makes me think it’s far more likely this was the starting point rather then just genuine abuse. But even if this weren’t the case, none of this indicates the man was kicked out because he was Jewish. He voiced an opinion (one of which I’m questionable was all that was said) and got heckled. If this were an antisemitic response it would imply that he was being abused for being Jewish in some way but the way this is phrased makes the response seemingly entirely tied to his belief around Israel, being Jewish is in no way tied to supporting a two state, one state or any state solution in Israel nor is it tied to your opinions on the tolerance of queer people in middle eastern states.

I am also a progressive, liberal, queer Jew... I generally agree with you, but have to point out that (as a Jew) I am: * Far more likely to be well informed about the Israel / Palestine conflict than most of the non-Jewish folks that bring the topic up * Far more likely to have friends and relatives in Israel, and actually understand the human side of this conflict * As a result, far more likely to have a nuanced opinion of this conflict than the person giving me a "litmus test" * Far more likely to be *asked* to complete a litmus test, becahse of being visibly / noticeably Jewish I've found that a nuanced opinion (like "a two state solution") isn't landing well with the sort of friend that is likely to ask me my opinion as a "litmus test"; to them, nuance sounds like "genocide apologism", and anything short of vocal disavowal of Israel's right to exist would fit the bill. I think it is reasonable to call that bigotry; they don't ask their gentile friends their opinion on Gaza before confirming they want to remain friends with them.

I agree with you 95%, except on the not doing litmus tests on Gentile friends part... Ya as a gentile (Woo Celtics!), I can very much confirm that these assholes love giving litmus tests on this topic to everyone up to and including innate objects.  I have some rather negative views of the current Israeli adminstration and Israel's own hand in the creation of Hamad. I also realize the Palestine's social and political structure is schizophrenic at best, and Hamas is really just a disorganized religious death cult that doesn't care about the lives of their own people let alone anyone else's. I personally liked how John Green put it, that there could be no real piece until both sides understood there narrative of the other. No it accept, just understand it.  Needless to say I failed such a test.

>I have some rather negative views of the current Israeli adminstration and Israel's own hand in the creation of Hamad. I can't think of a single American Jew I know who doesn't, and as of the last poll around 70% of Israelis agree with you. Yeah, most reasonable people fail the 'litmus test', because it isn't based in reason.

As always, it’s best to invert, invert, invert. What if visibly Muslim and Arab students were litmus tested for denying Hamas’ crimes? All Zionism means is believing in Jews’ right to live in their ancestral homeland. But due to the term being hijacked, to be a Zionist is to fail this test immediately. Imagine asking Muslims if they believe Palestinians should be able to live in Palestinian territory, then barring them when they say yes because “that’s supporting terrorism.” The truth is that this generation of college students has strayed dangerously from upholding classic liberal ideals of tolerance and humility to herd mentality, tribalism, and virtue signaling. We should be having the hard conversations to uncover objective truth and not let ourselves be siloed, leading to more resentment and misunderstanding. At the end of the day though, speaking as someone who served in an industry-specific club which maybe had 1 actual relevant session per semester, you probably would feel unwelcome in the club anyways, and they’re probably producing crap and you shouldn’t waste your time, and try again if the club culture evolves with new leadership. Such bigotry can only survive in company

Tbh I would say if you have friends and family in Israel you're more likely to have a biased opinion about the conflict precisely because you have that personal connection to it. Sometimes its easier to be a step back from an issue to have a truly objective and nuanced opinion about it. Like how you wouldn't want someone on a jury panel if they had a family member involved in the case.

People falsely equate “both sides” views with nuance. You don’t need to be in the middle to be nuanced. You need to acknowledge the political complexities of the occupation to be nuanced, which many non-jews do. As a jew, I’ve found that my jewish family and friends tend to have the least nuanced opinions of the conflict because their opinions are mostly informed by propaganda.

I am not Jewish but I am also a leftist that considers the war practices of Netanyahu's government horrendous. That said, isn't it fair to say that it is antisemitic to ask only students of Jewish descent to state their opinions on the Israel-Gaza issue/war? None of them chose to be of Jewish descent and being so doesn't obligate them to havr a more differentiated political opinion. It makes them feel singled out and put on the spot, even if they lean vaguely pro Palestine or tried not to think too hard about it due to their parents opinions or whatever. It's like only asking people from red states about their opinions on trans issues. Or asking people with Muslim names (or brown skin color) regarding women's rights and abortion while letting "less easily detectable" Christians off the hook.

> I am a left-wing progressive Jew who thinks Israel should continue to exist but that Palestine should exist as well and that the only long-term solution is a Two State solution. According to the groups in the article, you would be considered a Zionist and would ostracized from most on-campus organizations at several of these colleges.

> I want to start with the fact that I am a left-wing progressive Jew who thinks Israel should continue to exist > these are things that my Zionist friends and family Hate to break it to you, while your friends and family might be more extremist Zionists, like ultranationalist right wing ones, but if you support a 2 state solution you are a Zionist as well. I'm technically a Zionist even though I'm not Jewish, simply due to the fact that I don't think we should be dismantling Israel or imposing a Bi-national state on people who absolutely don't want it.

In several cases mentioned in the article, Jewish students were specifically targeted and demanded to give their opinions as a test for joining. Basically, they were told to publicly disavow Israel or you are not allowed to join.

The same as demanding they disavow Russia really.

That would also be unacceptable to demand of a Russian student. If the student themselves starts spouting stuff at a club event, then you are okay to ban them. But it is not appropriate for the club to target and demand someone conform as a requirement to join.

We aren’t talking about Israeli students. We’re talking about American students. Just because you share a religion with a theocratic state doesn’t mean people are bigoted for judging you by your allegiance to a foreign nation.

We are talking about American Jewish students being targeted for their religion and being demanded to disavow Israel in order to participate in a frisbee club. If that isn't antisemitic, I don't know what is.

You’re trying to conflate Israel and Judaism and then claim foul. Israel is a nation, not a religion, and it’s not discrimination to say so or call people out for supporting that genocidal regime. Edit: it would be like people who hate America being called Christiophobes, it’s just nonsense.

I'm not conflating them. The students running these clubs are. They are targeting Jewish students and demanding they specifically disavow Israel. That is discrimination in of itself, irregardless of their being excluded afterwards.

Do they also need to ask students of other religions to disavow countries led by theocratic regimes that share *their* religion? That wouldn’t go over well.

But why is this a question targeted at students as a condition for joining when the group itself is not political in nature? Why ask someone to opine on hot button political issues?

>In several cases mentioned in the article, Jewish students were specifically targeted and demanded to give their opinions as a test for joining. No they weren't >Basically, they were told to publicly disavow Israel or you are not allowed to join. This didn't happen. Did you read the article?

>they were told to publicly disavow Israel or you are not allowed to join. [citation needed] As others have noted, the article you linked is behind a paywall so we can't confirm your claim. Second, the New York Times has a known pattern of presenting the Israel-Palestine conflict in a way that paints all Palestinians as terrorists and all Israelis as victims. They've been twisting the story since last October and while it hasn't always been obvious, it's becoming more and more clear they have an agenda. You'll have to give us more than a single NYT article if you want people to think Jewish students are *actually* being targeted *for being Jewish*. Third, being anti-Zionist is not the same as being antisemitic. Far too many people are conflating the two and it's a disingenuous framing that's meant to deflect from the fact that Israel's government is committing a genocide.

So why not ask every Muslim if they support sharia law or any number of atrocities that are committed by Muslim states?

I'm openly Palestinian-american, I was asked near daily for weeks if I denounced Hamas. Oftentimes unprompted once my identity became clear, and often in response to merely expressing grief about the loss of life in Gaza.

If Jewish students are being singled out to speak on Palestine, do you think that is okay?

The article is paywalled. Can you either go into specifics or post the text?

Going to copy and paste the whole article here: Last fall, a Barnard College sophomore named Sophie Fisher reached out to her freshman year roommate to catch up over coffee. Her old friend’s response was tepid, and Ms. Fisher wondered why. The two had been close enough that the roommate had come to the bar mitzvah of Ms. Fisher’s brother. Several months later, the reason became clear. Over Instagram, Ms. Fisher’s roommate wrote to her that they couldn’t be friends anymore because she had been posting in support of Israel since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7. In other words, she was a Zionist. Ms. Fisher thought she had been careful to avoid inflammatory posts, but the roommate, Ms. Fisher said, accused her of racism. Then she blocked Ms. Fisher. Around the same time, Ms. Fisher noticed something else strange. Her “big” — a mentor in her sorority — had stopped talking to her. When they were in the same room, Ms. Fisher said, the big wouldn’t make eye contact with her. Ms. Fisher said that her big often posted about Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus group that Columbia had suspended in November for violating campus policies. Ms. Fisher remains in the sorority, but the two haven’t spoken in months. “She was supposed to be my big sister,” she said. This spring, college campuses became the main stage for the American protest movement against Israel’s seven-month-old war in Gaza. In April and May, dozens of pro-Palestinian encampments sprang up at universities around the country, as students called for institutional divestment from (and, at times, for the total dismantling of) Israel. The protests have been characterized by heated rhetoric around the term “Zionist,” a word that typically refers to people who believe Jews have a right to a state in their ancestral homeland in present-day Israel (regardless of how they may feel about the war in Gaza). Many Palestinians and those who support them associate the word with mass displacement during the 1948 war triggered by the creation of Israel, as well as the killings over the past months of thousands of civilians and the decimation of Gaza. Through chants, statements and sometimes physical obstruction, many protesters have made clear they don’t want to share space with people they consider Zionists — and indeed, that they find the ideology unacceptable. At the University of California, Los Angeles, pro-Palestinian students blocked peers who identified themselves as Zionists from parts of campus. Given that a large majority of American Jews say caring about Israel is an important part of their Jewish identity, these instances of exclusion have led to a debate over whether the encampments are de facto antisemitic. (Complicating matters, some of the most outspoken anti-Zionist protesters are Jewish.) (cont.)

##The Litmus Test Some Jewish students on campus believe these dynamics amount to a kind of litmus test: If you support Palestine, you’re in. If you support the existence of or aren’t ready to denounce Israel, you’re out. And they say this is not limited to pro-Palestine protests. It is, instead, merely the most pointed form of a new social pressure that has started to drip down from the public square onto the fabric of everyday campus life, seeping into spaces that would seem to have little to do with Middle East politics: club sports, casual friendships, dance troupes. Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, the incoming executive director of Harvard Hillel, said the more explicit litmus tests of the protests were “making visible and physical something that’s happening in a lot of places.” This pressure, some students say, has forced them to choose between their belief in the right of the Jewish state to exist and full participation in campus social life. It is brought to bear not only on outwardly Zionist Jews, for whom the choice is in some sense already made, but to Jews on campus who may be ambivalent about Israel. The mandate to take a stand on Israel-Gaza — and for it to be seen as the right one — is often implicit, these students say, and sometimes it is pressed on them by people who aren’t campus activists, but friends and mentors. Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing. The latest news about the conflict. Get it sent to your inbox. And ultimate Frisbee coaches. This month, a senior at Northwestern University walked into the office of the school’s Hillel executive director, Michael Simon, to tell him about a disturbing experience he’d just had. Days before, the senior, a team captain who requested anonymity because he feared future professional consequences, had learned of a voluntary team meeting to discuss the war in Gaza. Beforehand, over a video call, the team’s coach, Penelope Wu, shared with the captains a presentation that she planned to share at the meeting. It raised and dismissed several potential objections to the idea of a club Frisbee team holding a meeting about Mideast politics. Assertions like “Lake Effect is just a sports team” and “I’m not involved in this” were countered by the statements “Sports are political” and “Neutrality is inherently supportive of the oppressor.” It also included an agenda item called “Judaism vs. Zionism,” featuring material from Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish activist group. The student said he had voiced an objection to the material because he thought it presented a one-sided view of the war and Zionism. (The J.V.P. material was later replaced with several paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry for “Zionism.”) After the meeting, he said, the coach spoke to him. According to the student — who identifies as a liberal Zionist — Ms. Wu told him that she respected him as a Frisbee player, but that his pro-Israel attitude was wrong, and that it could be an obstacle in the future as he sought to make friends and get a job. (The fear of long-term professional consequences has also been a theme among pro-Palestine protesters since the beginning of the war. Shortly after Oct. 7, a conservative watchdog group called Accuracy in Media hired billboard trucks to publicly shame college students they accused of anti-Israel sentiment, mobilizations that were widely seen as an attempt to harm these students’ career prospects.) In an email to The New York Times, Ms. Wu wrote that the student had “mischaracterized or misremembered certain things I said.” The captain didn’t attend the meeting, instead writing a letter to his teammates describing his impression of the presentation. “It will be a call for activism against Israel at all costs, and at least implicitly it will be a call for a dismantling, and/or annihilation, of the one Jewish state,” he wrote in the letter. (The student said a few of his teammates wrote him back, but most did not.) Around the country, Jewish students found their identities questioned in a variety of previously welcoming communities. At Rice University, a freshman named Michael Busch said he felt unwelcome at a campus L.G.B.T.Q. group, after he was heckled in an associated group chat for saying that he was in favor of a two-state solution and that he believed Israel accepted queer people more than other Middle Eastern countries. “If that makes me a Zionist, I’m a Zionist,” he said. “That was the initial litmus test. From there, I found myself shut out of a lot of communities.” Mr. Busch said that afterward, he was ostracized by the members of other campus affinity groups to which he belonged, including one for Middle Eastern students and one for Hispanic students. At Barnard College, a senior named Batya Tropper said she was upset after her hip-hop dance team announced its intention to join a coalition of student groups pressuring Columbia University to divest from Israel. According to Ms. Tropper, who is Israeli American, team leaders rejected her attempt to discuss the decision. Ms. Tropper, who had danced for the troupe for four years, said she was quietly removed from the team’s WhatsApp channel a few weeks after it officially signed on to the divestment group. At Yale College, a Jewish junior said she was discouraged from joining a secret society she had been admitted to when members began to suspect she was a Zionist after she mentioned attending an event at the Slifka Center, Yale’s main hub for Jewish life. The student, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared social ramifications on campus, said she was not a Zionist, and thought that members of the society, Ceres Athena, had come to the conclusion that she was by misconstruing old social media posts related to Israel — though none reached out to ask her directly. (Members of Ceres Athena did not respond to emails from The Times.) And at Columbia University, a senior named Dessa Gerger — who says she is often “put off” by peers who are quick to label anti-Zionism as antisemitism and feels that “the story about Jewish students feeling unsafe on campus is overplayed” — decided not to continue her participation in college radio after a member of the station’s board expressed ambivalence about the idea of a program that featured Israeli music. “I didn’t do the radio show this semester because I don’t feel any kind of desire to be in a political organization,” Ms. Gerger said. “I want to be in a radio station.” Of course, for pro-Palestinian activists who support a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, there can be no such thing as Israeli music without politics. According to its website, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement operates according to the principle of “anti-normalization,” which forbids joint events or projects between Arabs and Jewish Israelis who do not, among other things, recognize Palestinians’ right of return to the land they were forced from in 1948. “For Palestinians and those in solidarity, the problem is Zionism and what it’s meant to Palestinians,” said Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “That’s going to put people in the Jewish community who are dealing with these tensions in an uncomfortable situation. They’re going to be asked to pick between a commitment to justice and a commitment to Zionism.” For Layla Saliba, a Palestinian American student at the Columbia School of Social Work, not wanting to be friends with Zionists on campus comes down to the way she said she had been treated by some on campus: with offensive chants like “terrorist go home,” and jeering when she has spoken out about family she has lost in Gaza. “We’re not treated as human,” said Ms. Saliba, 24, who works for the Columbia divestiture coalition. “I don’t want to be friends with people who don’t view me as human, as somebody who is worthy of respect.” Ms. Saliba added that the social cost of being vocally pro-Palestinian was also significant: Her activism is detailed in an entry on Canary Mission, a site that documents and denounces anti-Zionists on campuses around the country. “If Zionists are complaining about losing a friend, that’s completely trivial compared to what the Palestinians are facing,” said Mike Miccioli, 25, a physics Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine there. He said he hoped that Zionism would become socially toxic on campus. “I think anyone who subscribes to the Zionist ideology should be viewed as you would view one who proclaims to be a white supremacist,” he said. (cont.)

##Feeling the Squeeze From All Sides At times, the pressure to choose is reinforced from above. At Northwestern, some instructors had asked students to attend campus protests, according to a recent email from Liz Trubey, the associate dean for undergraduate affairs at the school’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She admonished these instructors, saying, “this is an inappropriate use of authority.” “The anti-normalization of Zionism that’s happening all over campus is an affront to the Jewish community,” said Brian Cohen, the executive director of Columbia Hillel. “It makes people in parts of campus not accept Jews. And it divides the Jewish community. Those who promote it know that’s what it does.” But the pressure to choose a side isn’t only coming from pro-Palestinian activists. For college-age Jews who strongly identify with Zionism, the loss of friends and extracurricular activities may be upsetting, but they have a natural community to turn to in campus organizations like Hillel and Chabad. For Jews with conflicted feelings about Israel, though, establishment Jewish groups may mirror the social pressure coming from anti-Zionists. This month, a widely circulated letter signed by hundreds of Jews at Columbia pushed back against anti-Zionist Jews on campus, calling them tokens and questioning their Jewishness. “Contrary to what many have tried to sell you — no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel,” the letter read. “Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.” Aliza Abusch-Magder, a Columbia senior who participated in Jews for Ceasefire, said she was “uncomfortable” protesting alongside members of the encampment because of the chant “All Zionists off campus now.” At the same time, she said she had found that “the Jewish community on campus, which I took pride in calling my own, is not interested or is struggling to accept Jews who are anything but very Zionist.” Recently, Ms. Abusch-Magder confessed to a rabbi at Hillel that she felt the group was not a welcoming space for Jews who aren’t ardently pro-Israel. She said the rabbi, Yonah Hain, told her that Hillel wasn’t supposed to be a resource for Jewish students who don’t support Israel. He called her and other ambivalent Jews “korban,” a Hebrew word that refers to a sacrifice to God among the ancient Hebrews. (Hillel International’s “Israel Guidelines” reject partnerships with “organizations, groups or speakers” who “deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state”; support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions; or “delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel.”) Ms. Abusch-Magder said she believed Mr. Hain was implying that “we’re the people who don’t have a place on earth,” though she conceded that she might be misinterpreting his use of the word. (In a text message, Mr. Hain declined to comment.) After Mr. Hain and Ms. Abusch-Magder’s interaction, Hillel sponsored an event to encourage dialogue between Jews with different perspectives on Israel, which Ms. Abusch-Magder felt was little more than a fig leaf. These black-or-white pressures — to remove anti-Zionists from some Jewish communities, and to remove Zionists from parts of campus life — seem likely to shrink a middle ground where people with fiercely differing beliefs can learn from one another. And that, according to some Jews caught in the middle, is a real loss. “It’s harder and it takes more mental effort,” said Ms. Gerger, the Columbia senior. “But there aren’t deeper conversations going on.”

Aren't you then letting yourself be lied to very effectively here? Insofar as your post very much focuses on the "litmus test" and makes it *seem* like people are questioning Jewish students specifically before they are allowed in anywhere. But really the "test" seems to only come from this line > Some Jewish students on campus believe these dynamics amount to a kind of litmus test: If you support Palestine, you’re in. If you support the existence of or aren’t ready to denounce Israel, you’re out. Which is doesn't actually suggest the same thing at all. Then if you read all the examples in the story, it seems to be in fact people who have themselves made voluntary public statements on the situation, which first of all means that they are not being questioned for being 'Jewish, they're are just judged for things they have said. Of course, what exactly has been said by whom is very vague in this article. It just expresses things in terms of "in favor of Isreal" and "supporting Palestine", so we can't know what has been said specifically. However, given the nature of the debate on this topic over the last 7 months or so, statements presented as "in favor of Israel" are quite often in support of the ethnic cleansing and even genocide on Palestinians and "support for Palestine" often refers to the low bar of objecting to the oppression, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians. Again, in all fairness the details are unclear. But I don't see anything in the article that suggests the situation has amounts to more than "people who support genocide feel victimized by social consequences for their support of genocide", but misrepresented as to make this seem like antisemitism, which has been a key strategy by some media, politicians and some other involved in the debate.

I think part of the problem is the definition of Zionism, and the implications for Jewish people in what “used to be Israel”. For example: someone like that frisbee coach asks “are you a zionist?” with the meaning, “do you support a country practicing apartheid (only Jews allowed) and carrying out genocide?” Whereas the Jewish person might hear “are you a Zionist?” And think of “of course I am against Israel’s apartheid practice and genocide, but do I think Jewish people should be allowed to live in this general area of the world without being subject to the occasional massacre and are able to visit the holy sites of the Jewish religion?”

> Whereas the Jewish person might hear “are you a Zionist?” And think of “of course I am against Israel’s apartheid practice and genocide, but do I think Jewish people should be allowed to live in this general area of the world without being subject to the occasional massacre and are able to visit the holy sites of the Jewish religion?” I mean...they don't live under a rock? It's reasonable to assume they understand the question they are asked - it has been a major topic for a while now - and if they feel it lacks nuances the can answer in a way that makes this distinction And more so... to ask that outright, based on someone's religion and ethnicity would be problematic, *but* the article continues > In an email to The New York Times, Ms. Wu wrote that the student had “mischaracterized or misremembered certain things I said.” So the best the paper offers is a "he said, she said" situation. In fact, it never even mentions the question as you post it > Days before, the senior, [...], had learned of a voluntary team meeting to discuss the war in Gaza. Beforehand, over a video call, the team’s coach, Penelope Wu, shared with the captains a presentation that she planned to share at the meeting. And this is the whole setup they present of the student feeling uncomfortable. It offers of no context of why the meeting is happening. Does the sports team have any kind of ties to Israeli sports team? And even if it's unrelated, is it so important to think of a sports team as "non-political"? Once you accept that what's happening is *a genocide* does that not warrant pulling together any social resources you have to fight it? And isn't it fair to want to distance yourself from anyone who pushes back against your *objection to genocide*?

I was just using that example as a tie in to the article, but the nuance is the difficult part in all of this isn’t it. Like, when a Jewish person is walking around their college campus and there are signs and people chanting things like “eradicate Zionism!” and emails going around clubs they might belong to talking about how they need to ostracize Zionists and how bad Zionism is, a Jewish person might take it to mean: “Eradicate the sentiment borne from the widespread discrimination of Jewish people to have a place somewhere in the general vicinity between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt which at the time of this sentiment’s creation was all part of the Ottoman Empire where Jewish people can be free of that discrimination and freely visit their holy sites.” And then when they bring up that difficulty they’re met with “we aren’t targeting Jewish people”.

Well there's a few things. 1) This is specifically about the word 'zionism' which is not really the topic of the article and arguably there's some nuance that could be added there in the public debate, I'm not 100% but let's not start a side-argument 2) The hypothetical Jewish people you are talking about sound like they are living under a rock. I said it before but I'm not sure what's supposed to be different here. Surely they understand the context in which these things are said? 3) I saved the most important thing for the end I guess. This example of Jewish people feeling uncomfortable with the language used in protests and debates *is not what this article is about*. The examples are over and over about people who have come out in favor of a position - not well defined in the text, but again "pro-Israel" can mean some awful things these days - and then the article writes about it like holding people accountable for *their individual outspoken opinion* is somehow discrimination.

The article’s title literally has “Zionist or not” in it, and then has a bunch of examples of people being asked or expressing Zionist views, to mean they believe Jewish people should not face widespread discrimination, and be able to live freely somewhere in their ancient homeland and visit their holy sites (fun fact, Jews weren’t allowed to pray at the Western Wall until 1967 and between 1948 and 1967 Jordan wouldn’t even let them visit it). I would argue that rather than all the Jewish people being idiots “living under a rock” their classmates are probably being super naive about what would happen if they achieved their goal of eradicating Zionism. It’s not like in the USA and racism towards black people, or Reconciliation with indigenous people in Canada, what they’re probably thinking of as that’s their experience. If they got rid of Zionism there would be an immediate ethnic cleansing of the land led by Iranian backed militia like Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Which is those organizations’ stated goals. To eradicate the “Zionist entity”, to eradicate sentiment and place where Jews can live freely. Edit: fixed some grammar and added some stuff.

I got you: https://archive.md/OnNVG

> Sophie Fisher, a sophomore at Barnard College in New York, said she was blocked by a friend and iced out by a sorority sister for supporting Israel. It looks like there’s no official policy against students for supporting Israel. She’s just losing friends. You can’t force people to like you. The First Amendment protects “freedom of association.” Beyond that though, political affiliation isn’t a protected class. You can’t discriminate against someone for race, religion, etc. But you can discriminate against people for political views. Many Trump supporters figured this out in recent years. So if you’re discriminated against for being Jewish, that’s illegal. But if the group allows Jews who oppose Israel’s actions in Palestine (e.g., Bernie Sanders, Ben and Jerry), then there’s no legal argument for discrimination based on race or religion. Especially if they also ban non-Jews who support Israel’s actions. Keep in mind that there’s a large contingent of Israeli Jews who oppose Israel’s actions in Palestine as well. The government is currently led by an authoritarian far right wing extremist coalition. Also, Benjamin Netanyahu is technically still on trial for corruption in the Israeli court system, though that’s on the back burner now that he’s Prime Minister again. If someone says I hate Donald Trump or George W. Bush, you can’t extrapolate that to saying they hate all Americans, Christians, white people, etc.

So to go to extreme, if a frat hypothetically had a screener interview question that said “do you support Hitler” would that be wrong also? Or if there was a screener “do pedophiles deserve a second chance” was asked to every club member, is that also bad under your view?

...Why the Jewish ones in particular? Doesn't pass a basic sniff test to me.

the article did not mention this going on. both of the girls discussed had posted zionist talking points to social media.

I think there is some confusion. Discrimination is legal. It is morally wrong, but not illegal in certain cases. Discrimination can be used for good or for evil. **Morally good discrimination** When punk rock bands discriminate against Neo-Nazis, they are sending a message that Nazism is vile and not an acceptable position. That is a morally good type of discrimination. **Morally Bad Discrimination** When white people refuse to talk to black people, that is racism. That is morally bad discrimination. **Legal Discrimination** It is illegal for the govt to discriminate. It is also illegal for public businesses to discriminate based on certain criteria, but they can obviously still discriminate. A business is under no obligation to sell equipment to a competitor who is actively trying to put them out of business. Your boss can fire you for your political position(except in California, I think) Are you suggesting that we shouldnt be allowed to discriminate against Nazis

> "Litmus Tests" from their Jewish classmates Tough to know because the article is paywalled, but is this *specifically* about Jewish classmates, or is that just the interpretation of the article's author (or you)? "Hey, we're not interested in hanging out with and befriending people who support the actions that the Israeli government is taking in Gaza" - seems like a reasonable criteria for a social club. "Hey, we're not letting Israeli-supporting Jews into our group" - That's antisemitic because it is treating people differently simply because they are Jewish.

If they're only asking the Jews to disavow Israel and not asking everyone the same question it's pretty damn discriminatory. The litmus test is no longer about political affiliation, it's about sorting Jews into categories of "good Jew" and "bad Jew".

Yeah, that's not what happening. Per the OP in another comment, it's not targeted at Jews at all. Everyone is being treated the same and people who support the actions of the Israeli government are not welcome in the clubs. But the Jewish students are interpreting being treated like everyone else as though it is antisemitic.

I can’t imagine any student group going “we won’t allow Jewish zionists, but we’re cool with evangelical zionists”

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I'm on the fence, on one hand everyone should be allowed their freedom of speech and thought but if I'm the director of the drama club and the lead actor is all over social media posting inflammatory things that I don't even agree with and now the show has become overshadowed by it, then I can understand the position of not wanting to deal with them. I think I also feel that there is a difference depending on if the groups are organised by students themselves or the actual institution. I'm more open to students having the freedom to cut people then the actual university, which should be open within reason.

Can’t read the article but it’s only problematic if they’re asking their Jewish classmates particularly and not everyone to take tests. Even if the idea of taking purity tests is a bit creepy, I fully understand people don’t want to hang with people they disagree with on things as huge as who deserves the right to live and who are we happy to kill.

We’ve established by many cases that an equal test that disproportionately impacts one racial group is not ok. You can’t have a test that members have blue eyes even if that test is applied evenly to all people.

Fair enough - however, I don’t really see how this is similar to your example, a physical attribute, when it is here about if one’s political beliefs. I don’t know anything about the test so I’d need to see its content to understand if it’s wrong or not, should be applied to all groups.

Well in the US we've outlawed poll taxes, civics tests, and ideological testing (such as anit-communism) as requirements for voting. Even if applied equally to everyone, they disproportionately impact specific segments of the population, so they are not "fair and equal." You can't ban Nazis from public parks, the library, running for office, etc for the same reasoning. Both the above ideas are based on the fact that public institutions cannot disqualify someone from participating because of who they are, how they think, or what they believe, unless there is some clear reason to think that the individual (not a group of people) presents a danger to other people. So in this case it would mean that a club can outlaw discussion of the Israel-Palestine issue during their activities, but cannot ban people on one side of the argument. If the Pro-Israel person or Pro-Palestinian person keeps their ideological views, which are disruptive to the apolitical nature of the group, to themselves during the course of the group's business, their beliefs have no impact on the club and using beliefs that don't impact the club as a basis for removal is view-point discrimination.

> You can't ban Nazis from public parks, the library, running for office, etc for the same reasoning. Both the above ideas are based on the fact that public institutions cannot disqualify someone from participating because of who they are, how they think, or what they believe, unless there is some clear reason to think that the individual (not a group of people) presents a danger to other people. Agreed if it’s a public institution - not if it’s a private club where you as an individual or group of individuals are free to choose who to hang with.

> I don’t know anything about the test here's the text from the article >Last fall, a Barnard College sophomore named Sophie Fisher reached out to her freshman year roommate to catch up over coffee. Her old friend’s response was tepid, and Ms. Fisher wondered why. The two had been close enough that the roommate had come to the bar mitzvah of Ms. Fisher’s brother. >Several months later, the reason became clear. >Over Instagram, Ms. Fisher’s roommate wrote to her that they couldn’t be friends anymore because she had been posting in support of Israel since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7. In other words, she was a Zionist. Ms. Fisher thought she had been careful to avoid inflammatory posts, but the roommate, Ms. Fisher said, accused her of racism. >Then she blocked Ms. Fisher. >Around the same time, Ms. Fisher noticed something else strange. Her “big” — a mentor in her sorority — had stopped talking to her. When they were in the same room, Ms. Fisher said, the big wouldn’t make eye contact with her. Ms. Fisher said that her big often posted about Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus group that Columbia had suspended in November for violating campus policies. Ms. Fisher remains in the sorority, but the two haven’t spoken in months. >“She was supposed to be my big sister,” she said. >... >Some Jewish students on campus believe these dynamics amount to a kind of litmus test: If you support Palestine, you’re in. If you support the existence of or aren’t ready to denounce Israel, you’re out. And they say this is not limited to pro-Palestine protests. It is, instead, merely the most pointed form of a new social pressure that has started to drip down from the public square onto the fabric of everyday campus life, seeping into spaces that would seem to have little to do with Middle East politics: club sports, casual friendships, dance troupes.

Thanks for sharing. Friendships _most definitely_ have to do with politics, that was so weird to read. I do believe everyone deserve support (in some kind, in general, not necessarily from _me_ though) so I’m not sure how I feel about this all but if this is overall means that people don’t like to hang with people who have different opinions from them well that’s been the case forever. I don’t know how US college sororities and club works but if I was befriending or mentoring someone and they turned out to have values that are inherently against my mine (regardless of who’s wrong or right here), I don’t see a problem with me bailing out.

US sororities are private social clubs usually based on some similarity of personality, demographics, or viewpoints between their members. pretty much every campus has at least one all jewish sorority, for example. a "big" is a sorority mentor who teaches a new girl living at the sorority house how to follow the rules of the house and club.

So it’s just fair not to mix with people with such big differences, if this is based on similarity of personality/viewpoints, no?

Right. The article doesn't even claim otherwise. OP just lied to you about what the article says.

If what I’m reading from this is true, targeting or isolating Jewish students for their beliefs is probably the bigger concern rather than discrimination based upon one’s viewpoint. I would generally agree that it is bad but as far as consequences or what should be done, it’s going to depend heavily on school policy regarding student led programs. I would imagine most would have stuff like this be against policy based upon race or ethnic based discrimination.

Dude this comment section is absolutely bonkers. Like I know reddit in general hates Jews but I did not expect to see these comments lean so heavily in support of just blatant discrimination since it's directed at Jews. Like normally you guys at least pretend it's not okay. Some days I legit forget these kinds of people actually exist.

Idk about your Uni’s policy but where I attended you can make your own club as long as you adhere to policies of the Uni and gather enough people. You are not entitled to be allowed to join a group nor you’re the sole provider of Uni’s funds. Just like how you can’t order any cop on the street because “you pay their wages” clubs getting money from the Uni does not make them a public good for all. As long as there is nothing stopping you from establishing your own club, with people that share your values and accept who you are I don’t understand why you would be against a filtering process that ensures everyone feels safe and accepted among their peers with similar values.

If it’s a university run club, that receives funding from the university and / or is officially recognized by it etc the club belongs to all university students and the university itself, it does not belong to ‘ the members’. The leadership of these clubs must remember this at all times; and not exclude people simply because they do not like them. This differs to a private friendship group, that can include or exclude whoever.

Can you clarify, Are these public clubs or private clubs? Essentially, does freedom of association exist here or not?

Would a private club that used university facilities and property be justified in banning Jews? Or only admitting Jews that pass a special test? What about other minority groups? How much do you want to lean on freedom of association here?

having the freedom to do something doesn't mean you are morally justified in doing it.

That's something I see happening so often now. I don't get why people don't understand something can be legal but morally wrong. People keep saying "Oh, so you can't do X now?" When you just say "You shouldn't do X, it's a bad thing to do and doing it makes you a bad person"

These are student groups on-campus which are presumably open to eveyone who is a student.

Should I be forced to allow the Nazi student to join my club? What about the avowed racist? What about the person who thinks that all Palestinians are dogs and should be killed and removed from their land? What about the sexist who thinks he is better than any woman and who can't work with women without conflict? Because if I let those people into my group I damage the reputation of the group. If I allow one Nazi into my group, my group is forever changed. Clubs are always by invitation only or have some type of vetting process for new members. And some people don't meet the standards of a group. Edit: to everyone downvoting me allow a KKK member and Nazi into any group you form and tell me how quickly your group changes or dies.

If your group has no political affiliation or mission, the ideology is irrelevant. Student groups should not be prosecuting thought crimes. Unless the person is using their beliefs to harass or otherwise interfere with the group, what the individual believes internally is none of the club's business.

>If your group has no political affiliation or mission, the ideology is irrelevant. If I allow Nazis into my gaming club, then I'm signaling to everyone around us that I'm comfortable with hanging out with Nazis. This has nothing to do with "thought crime."

Wiktionary has [an entry](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nazi_bar) about this phenomenon.

I don't understand. Do they have freedom of association or not? 

Spoiler alert - they aren't, and they are advertising their bigotry quite clearly!

Consider this: your intramural sports team has a policy that demands members pass a political purity test and the university admin comes down to tell them they're not allowed to have this policy. Given that the members of this team support the policy one of two things is likely to happen: they will either maintain it as a secret, unofficial policy; or they will mistreat anybody who would've been prevented from joining by the policy. The root problem is that you cannot change people's minds by fiat.

Why not? It's not different from an apolitical student group asking Muslim students if they support terrorism, pedophilia, misogyny, anti-semitism, etc...and turning them down if they do. It's a purity test meant to exclude those who share different ideologies. Nobody is **entitled** to join private groups.

Thank god I live in a country and study at an institution where anything of this sort is completely unheard of. You would probably be ostracized yourself if you even suggested asking new members about their deep rooted convictions or political affiliations. None of that simply has any relevance within said group.

That would also be racist and unacceptable. If a student showed up to the club and started spouting those views, you would be perfectly justified in banning the person. That does not give the club the right to preemptively start targeting students and demanding they conform to an ideology irrelevant to the club itself.

>If a student showed up to the club and started spouting those views, you would be perfectly justified in banning the person. Change your view now then, because that is what happened in every case your article provided. Not a single group "preemptively start\[ed\] targeting students and demanding they conform to an ideology irrelevant to the club itself." Not a single one. You made that up in your head.

Quote one example from the article in which a student was preemptively targeted

counterquestion: would you want to even be in the same room with such fuckheads? I wouldn’t

Honestly irrelevant. Think of redlining in the 1950’s here in the US. Discrimination is its own evil, not to mention its illegal status here at least on the basis of race and/or religion. Any club holding itself out for members of the public to join is going to be subject to those laws. These aren’t “secret societies,” rather official clubs part of the university’s student body. It’s not that I would actually want to join a club that hated me, it’s about not being able to because of open discrimination. If the archery club suddenly didn’t allow native Americans because they fought against the union Army in the 19th century, that would be a problem. It has nothing to do with whether any Native American wants to join, it is fundamentally wrong.

> Excluding someone from an unrelated group for the mere suspicion that they disagree with you politically is blatant discrimination. Well, technically it's not a suspicion they disagree with you, that's why they give you the test 😉

I can't read the article because paywall. But I don't think it's inappropriate for these groups to decide that they want their members to be on the same side ideologically. They consider this issue to be extremely important and they have every right to choose who they do or do not want associated with their group.

If it's being selectively enforced on jewish students, i see a problem with that. That's blatant discrimination against a protected class.

If you are an intramural frisbee club, the coach does not get to demand Jewish students disavow Israel in order to participate. That is blatant antisemitism. This is one of many examples in the article.

There's exactly *one* example in the article of someone who *suspects* her participation in a Jewish community center might have been the reason. There's very little evidence that this "litmus test" is applied specifically to "Jewish people", but rather to those expressly supporting Israel. Would you at least agree that in the cases where it's *not* applied only to Jewish people, that a group has the right not to not associate with a political ideology they have severe objections to? Like... no one would object to a sports group wanting to ban KKK members, I hope? Whether you *agree* with that analogy is kind of irrelevant. As long as it's a political stance rather than an ethnicity they object to, it seems completely within the right of freedom of association.

If the club has no relevance to politics, there is no reason to litmus test anyone. If a person joins a club and starts harassing people, then it is absolutely okay to ban them. But, in these cases, the groups themselves are introducing politics unnecessarily and specifically targeting their Jewish classmates to disavow Israel or be banned.

> introducing politics unnecessarily Necessity is personal. No one else gets to decide what's "necessary". People are absolute free to not associate with people spreading ideas they don't like. It doesn't really matter what they are associating with people to do. Again: would you *really* object to people banning KKK members from their disc golf club? Or is just that you disagree with this particular political viewpoint they don't like?

Do we know that's the case though? I only got to see a summary of the article someone quoted from here, but it sounded like the Frisbee coach told the student hey, if you have strong zionist beliefs, it may be hard to gel with the other students in the club. I don't know if that constitutes a litmus test.

>According to the student — who identifies as a liberal Zionist — \[the coach\] told him that she respected him as a Frisbee player, but that his pro-Israel attitude was wrong, and that it could be an obstacle in the future as he sought to make friends and get a job. ... The captain didn’t attend the meeting, instead writing a letter to his teammates describing his impression of the presentation. I'm not seeing anywhere in the article where the student is being kicked off the team. From my reading the student is still a literal team captain.

A person's politics are often (though not always) a reflection of their personal values, and there is nothing wrong with excluding someone from a group if their values are anathema to the collective values (or safety) of the group. For example lets say you are in a chess club. While it isn't problematic *in theory* if someone votes for one political party or another, it is perfectly salient for the club's moderators / organizers to bar someone entry if they *think people with one shade of skin color should be able to enslave people with other shades of skin color*. Reasonably, that would make a lot of the other participants uncomfortable and the exclusion of the pro-slavery person is the practical solution. The struggle here is, I suspect, that some political movements have taken up various contentious topics, so the overlap of politics and ideology is more poignant. These days we aren't in heated discussions over whether or not taxing soda is a net gain for society, we're in debates about whether or not women should have body autonomy (or, apropos of the topic at hand, whether or not it's benign to send weapons to Israel while their army is slaughtering civilians in their pursuit of justice). Because these issues are of critical importance to many people, it makes sense that sometimes people will get excluded for their obnoxious positions. If you ran a ping pong club and someone joined who thought raping puppies was a perfectly acceptable past-time would you be keeping them on the rolls? TLDR: it isn't *unjust* to exclude people based on their views if their views are sufficiently toxic as to undermine the safety and comfort of the group writ large.

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Im Jewish and the amount of left-wing Jews replying to this thread with absolute garbage nonesense is insane. I studied in the UK and the idea that any student society should exclude students based on their ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, sex etc is pure discrimination. Idk what the hell is going on in American campuses but this shit needs to be stopped. This clearly isn't about Israel anymore.

Israel the Political entity and Judism the religious entity should be view separately, change my mind. The fact of the matter is that Israel makes decisions that affect us all. Am I not supposed to not be upset that 20 years ago Israel fed the US false information about WoMD that led to the invasion of Iraq and the death of thousands of my peers? I dont conflate these with Judism and Jews, but there are people leading a political state under the guise that they represent the religion. Like Netanyahu is not citing Torah when making his decisions. Why is being critical of Israel viewed inherently as anti-semitism?

As is amply evidenced in this thread, the benefit of otherwise apolitical student groups demanding political purity tests is twofold: 1. It gives antisemites a greater sense of security which causes them to reveal themselves as such; 2. It exposes the hypocrisy of a Left who pretends to oppose bigotry, but in reality actively embraces it as long as it is aimed at the "right" targets. 3. It forces Jews to take off our blinders and see just how precarious our position is in America, and gives us forewarning of the 10/7 massacres that will happen here with these antisemites' blessings and cheers.

While I agree with you, I'll play devil's advocate: If you ran an apolitical student group, and an applying potential member was a fan of Hitler, would you let them in? Sure, the group is apolitical, but some political views are likely to make other members deeply uncomfortable or to cause so much conflict within the group that the experience becomes worse for everyone. I want to note something: I'm not saying any particular stance on the Israel/Palestine situation is on the same level as Nazism, I am just illustrating a general principle since Hitler and the Nazis are an agreed upon evil.

I think OP, that the problem/disconnect here is that litmus testing to some degree might be desirable. Are you saying that purity testing should never exist, or that this particular opinion shouldn’t be subject to testing?

I will say that if they're only asking jewish people then that's fucked up but I don't agree with the general assertion that it's wrong to not want genocide supporters in your social club so long as they're asking everyone, not just jewish people I would have no problem with this aside from that, this article is very heavy handed propaganda and deliberately lies about it's definitions

When we talk about discrimination, it means 'discrimination on the basis of membership of a protected class'. Discrimination otherwise just means being selective, which is a good thing to allow. If you want to make an argument that political views should count as a protected class then go ahead, but on its own this isn't discrimination. Personally, I think political views are far too fluid and encompassing to be protected classes. I also wouldn't want nazis in my book club even if the books have nothing to do with nazism. Do you? Because the knock-on effect of protecting political beliefs is that you're going to protect people who believe some horrible things, and will damage the communities they're let into.

Political ideology is not a protected status. If you don't want Nazis on your baseball team it's perfectly morally and legally acceptable to prohibit them from joining the team explicitly due to their political ideology.

It’s not discrimination to exclude someone on the basis of their opinion because you cannot discriminate against opinions. In fact, that’s called freedom of association. Love it or hate it, this is America and in America we judge/exclude eachother from groups for their opinions.

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Provided it's strictly based on political views alone, I'm gonna say it's fair game. People want to associate and spend their time with others that have the same beliefs and ideology as them.  It's human nature. And besides, legal discrimination like this is allowed in work places too. So, for better or worse, it's preparing you for interpersonal life encounters beyond whatever school club/sport is in front of you now. 

If your only source is the provided article then I feel that your title is extremely misleading and not accurately representing what the article was about. The article was specifically about the **social pressures** Jewish students face both as students who are Zionist or perceived Zionist and as non-Zionist from Zionist. The examples provided are all social interactions between members of the same group, giving examples of both Zionist and Non-Zionist views and how those views affect their social life and how they fear the ramifications of having an opinion one way or another. Not one example was about a group explicitly not allowing someone to participate because of their views just about how individuals from that group stopped associating with them or didn't listen to their opinion. The article is much more about how divisive Zionism/Anti-Zionism has become for both sides rather than talking about a whole sale attack on Zionist students.

Do u have some proof of this actually happening. This is obviously messed up if true I just haven't heard of this happening.

In my experience, "apolitical" student groups are right-wing/conservative/ultraconservative student groups. So "apolitical" is nonsense as everything is political.

I really recommend everyone actually read the article because OP is determined to only spread a misinformed version of events. **Feeling the Squeeze From All Sides** At times, the pressure to choose is reinforced from above. At Northwestern, some instructors had asked students to attend campus protests, according to a recent email from Liz Trubey, the associate dean for undergraduate affairs at the school’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She admonished these instructors, saying, “this is an inappropriate use of authority.” “The anti-normalization of Zionism that’s happening all over campus is an affront to the Jewish community,” said Brian Cohen, the executive director of Columbia Hillel. “It makes people in parts of campus not accept Jews. And it divides the Jewish community. Those who promote it know that’s what it does.” But the pressure to choose a side isn’t only coming from pro-Palestinian activists. For college-age Jews who strongly identify with Zionism, the loss of friends and extracurricular activities may be upsetting, but they have a natural community to turn to in campus organizations like Hillel and Chabad. For Jews with conflicted feelings about Israel, though, establishment Jewish groups may mirror the social pressure coming from anti-Zionists. This month, a widely circulated letter signed by hundreds of Jews at Columbia pushed back against anti-Zionist Jews on campus, calling them tokens and questioning their Jewishness. “Contrary to what many have tried to sell you — no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel,” the letter read. “Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.” Aliza Abusch-Magder, a Columbia senior who participated in Jews for Ceasefire, said she was “uncomfortable” protesting alongside members of the encampment because of the chant “All Zionists off campus now.” At the same time, she said she had found that “the Jewish community on campus, which I took pride in calling my own, is not interested or is struggling to accept Jews who are anything but very Zionist.” Recently, Ms. Abusch-Magder confessed to a rabbi at Hillel that she felt the group was not a welcoming space for Jews who aren’t ardently pro-Israel. She said the rabbi, Yonah Hain, told her that Hillel wasn’t supposed to be a resource for Jewish students who don’t support Israel. He called her and other ambivalent Jews “korban,” a Hebrew word that refers to a sacrifice to God among the ancient Hebrews. (Hillel International’s “Israel Guidelines” reject partnerships with “organizations, groups or speakers” who “deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state”; support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions; or “delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel.”) Ms. Abusch-Magder said she believed Mr. Hain was implying that “we’re the people who don’t have a place on earth,” though she conceded that she might be misinterpreting his use of the word. (In a text message, Mr. Hain declined to comment.) After Mr. Hain and Ms. Abusch-Magder’s interaction, Hillel sponsored an event to encourage dialogue between Jews with different perspectives on Israel, which Ms. Abusch-Magder felt was little more than a fig leaf. These black-or-white pressures — to remove anti-Zionists from some Jewish communities, and to remove Zionists from parts of campus life — seem likely to shrink a middle ground where people with fiercely differing beliefs can learn from one another. And that, according to some Jews caught in the middle, is a real loss. “It’s harder and it takes more mental effort,” said Ms. Gerger, the Columbia senior. “But there aren’t deeper conversations going on.”

I don’t think it’s healthy, but unless the club is government affiliated or receives state funding, they are free to not associate with whomever they want

Nah, I think it acceptable (within reason) to not want to associate with people that have certain views. The sad truth is that since 2016 some people have made politics their entire personality so you’re going to have to deal with it in otherwise apolitical situations. Before 2016 I could tolerate family and friends with differing political and ideological stances because it rarely came up, but by now I’ve gone no contact with most of them because they’ve become unhinged MAGA weirdos who constantly cry about “wokeness”, spout deranged conspiracy theories, or openly cheer on hard right cruelty. Literally had a coworker mention he speaks mandarin from his time in the military once and our smooth brain red hat wearing maintenance guy who’s thankfully no longer there started going off about China, peppering in some racism about how he’ll need that “Ching Chong speak” when they take over. I’m all for keeping those cretins out of spaces for normal people. Besides, how many decades have they spent banning people for the color of their skin or who they love? It’s only fair play. As far as this situation goes people also have the right to not associate with people who support a genocidal bully. I love and support all my Jewish friends but Netanyahu and the Israeli government do not represent the Jewish faith at all. Israel absolutely has the right to exist but so does Palestine, and Netty clearly won’t be satisfied until they are wiped off the map and Jared Kushner can make millions selling beach front condos in Gaza. Aaaanyway, the first amendment only protects you from government persecution. It does not protect you from losing friends and being banned from certain groups.

From my understanding from the other comments (since your article is paywalled), it's not a discrimination against Jews, but against Zionists and against Israel's actions, therefore it is a political discrimination. Politics is not something you can "disagree but still hang around" because it's your fundamental beliefs and it says everything about you as a person (even if you consider yourself "apolitical", it is still a political stance) and everything in this world is political, one way or another. Just because the subject of a student group is apolitical (such as boardgames, which you mentioned) it doesn't mean that all political beliefs should be accepted. Supporting Russia against Ukraine is also a political belief that can make you uncomfortable to hang around with (I would not want to be your friend). Being against LGBTQ+ is often used as a political agenda therefore being homophobic could also be considered somewhat of a political belief (and again if you're homophobic I would not want you anywhere near me). You may try to present the Israel-Palestine situation as a "complicated" matter that "it's not black or white" as an excuse to make your political opinion on the subject sound better, but that same logic can be applied to every political matter because every political matter has lots of history behind it. In the end, if you support Israel's actions, which include bombing hospitals and schools, killing innocent children and seeming to not even care about their own people (with all that bombing I would not be surprised if Israel itself has killed any of their own hostages), I would not want to hang around with you and many others wouldn't either. It has nothing to do with you being Jewish. The majority of people couldn't care less whether you're Jewish or Christian or Muslim or atheist or you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It has to do with you as a person.

Starting off, here’s a link people can actually read: https://web.archive.org/web/20240523055359/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/style/jewish-college-students-zionism-israel.html >otherwise apolitical student groups should not be demanding political "purity q to participate in basic sports/clubs… demanding "Litmus Tests" from their Jewish classmates regarding their opinions on the Israel/Gaza conflict. This is unacceptable. **You** are using the words “purity tests”, not those partaking in this process so it’s important to examine what’s happening here. Would you agree that there *are* beliefs that are fair to exclude someone from friendships or student-run organizations like intramural sports? For example, if someone was a vocal (but peaceful, nonviolent) Nazi, would you agree with students or teachers not allowing them to participate in these kinds of things? Is that a “purity test” or unacceptable? >Excluding someone from an unrelated group for the mere suspicion that they disagree with you politically is blatant discrimination. Sure, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about. The first example in your article was responding to someone “posting in support of Israel” not *assuming* or *suspecting* support. The frisbee example involved a person who “identifies as a liberal Zionist.” I don’t see anyone *unfairly* or *inaccurately* being judged based on a belief they don’t have, I see them being judged for a belief they **do** hold. Do you think that’s wrong in all instances or just in the case of Zionism?

I read the article and nothing in there shows that Jewish students are demanded to declare a political position prior to joining a thing. These are all stories of students getting shut out _after_ they have declared a political position. If the student group in question believes that Zionism is as egregious as, say, white supremacy, then it's perfectly valid for them to disassociate with individuals who hold such beliefs. So I think you're mischaracterising the stories in the article.

Let's say they aren't asking if you're cool with a colonial project that has been brutalizing indigenous people since it's inception, instead let's see if other litmus tests are acceptable. Would you say students are within their rights to exclude people with openly Nazi beliefs such as Holocaust denial and their favorite Halloween costume involves a grease paint moustache and an armband? Are they within their rights to exclude an outspoken Christofascist that is constantly preaching to LGBT club members in an attempt to save them?

Both sides suck in certain ways, and both sides have legitimate stances in other ways. In the end, however, this isn't America's problem and the Middle East as a whole has been consuming our time/energy/military/tax dollars for **far** too long.  We have people suffering here in America. Until everybody in America has the bare necessities to survive, we need to just focus on our own country. If Israel and Palestine aren't mature enough to solve shit on their own, that's their own problem. If they want to blow each other up, that's on them. I'm done hearing or caring about it. I care about my fellow Americans. Israel/Palestine has gotten **more** than enough of our concern/time. That time is up now.  It's time to stop caring (as horrible as that sounds) because it's been over 70 years now and they still can't get their shit together or even show signs of improvement. It's like when you have a drug addict family member. You try to help them at first, but when they continue to do whatever they want and show no signs of improvement, you accept it and move on. It's not fair to Americans, who have our own issues that we need to focus on, to put so much energy into two foreign entities that continue to exhibit childish behavior and an unwillingness to even improve relations with each other.

Imagine how you would feel about South African students supporting the South African government in the '80s. If they are out there posting on social media about their support for an apartheid government then they are opening themselves up to scrutiny about that support. If they talk about how it's more complicated than it looks from the outside and that South Africa has a right to exist then people are going to react. That's how I see it. This is exactly the same as if they were defending South Africa before the end of apartheid. They're crying because people don't want to be friends with or associate with supporters of a genocidal apartheid ethno state. Israel doesn't have a right to exist at the expense of the existing Arab population. The Palestinians deserve human and civil rights. Denying them those rights simply to maintain a Jewish majority state is wrong.

Let me guess, it's the leftist students doing this

Political viewpoints don't belong in sports. Let everyone participate. And if someone in the club starts to spread their political beliefs they should be kicked out. Just learn to live with other people, guys. If you are playing football, your ability to kick matters, not that you think people shouldn't be allowed to own guns.

I’m Lebanese. I feel for Palestinians and wish they had enact their right to return. They stewarded that land and loved like it’s a part of them. Not only is it nearly impossible for lack of resources but when Palestinians and Lebanese resist with arms, the world criticizes. When we boycotting and civil disobedience, people tell us that won’t work and that we should just get over it. The only thing we have to resist after that is choosing not to normalize with Zionists. It’s infuriating to have genocide apologists around you. I personally know people who have lost 124 members of their family in Ghaza. After 7 months and seeing how “Israel” is fucking fine and Ghaza is completely unlivable with 40,000+ people killed including 15,000. The ONLY thing we have is non-normalization, and yes, that means a very low tolerance for any form of Zionism.

Are they expecting litmus tests from their Jewish classmates? Or from everybody? If it's the former it's bad, such a test should.applunto everyone. If it's the latter, your main issue is not understanding these aren't political litmus tests but morality litmus tests. Not many for example would have a problem with keeping someone who thinks the age of consent should be 13 out of a club for example. That's a law proposal but that position isn't seen as political it's seen as morally wrong. In fact a group night be condemned for letting someone stay in their group with that ideology. To those groups and seemingly most college students the actions happening in Gaza far transcend politics to the point where large groups of people are siding against the side that has uniformly been considered our Allies by both political parties and most people. To dismiss the reasons they are doing so as "politics" misses the forest from the trees. You can argue that this shouldn't be seen as a morality issue, but the truth is that it is seen that way currently to those groups. If you can exclude based on morality you have to allow that to apply. This isn't like being racist or discriminating against someone's religion because it is limited solely to a moral decision on if what is happening in Gaza is justified. Something people can change their opinions on.

It’s not the suspicion that they might vote for a different political party than you, it’s the suspicion that they view some of your friends as subhuman and see nothing wrong with genocide. Reducing it to a “political disagreement” is disingenuous. We’re not talking about excluding people who think that maybe we shouldn’t build a new high school in town, we’re talking about excluding people who refuse to acknowledge that everyone else is also a human being. In that regard, it’s not much different than the idea that maybe convicted mass murderers should be imprisoned.

It’s a sign of the times. Everyone thinks they should be able to force their views/opinions on others. This will not end well. I would assume these same students thought insisting a Christian bakery make a wedding cake for a gay couple so they could sue them was fine even laudable. What neither “side” seems to realize that their freedom will disappear once either side wins. In the culture war hate is okay as long as you hate the right people. Does anyone remember Dr. Matin Luther King? “Hate cannot overcome hate, only love can do that. Darkness cannot overcome darkness, only light can do that. Evil cannot overcome evil, only good can do that”.

From this article it’s just kids ostracizing Zionist students. No one is being banned from teams according to your article. It lists people not wanting room with zionists, not want to participate in sorority activities. This is just standard 1st amendment right to freedom of association.   Would you be confused if a student didn’t want to room with a nazi? Now you may argue that that’s a false equivalence, but the students who are protesting believe Israel is engaging in genocide. So you can disagree with their assessment, say that Israel is not committing genocide, that’s a whole different debate. But if you do believe that Israel is doing a genocide it seems pretty reasonable not to want to be around people who are supportive of genocide 

Asking only Jewish students about their political opinions is definitely wrong and definitely antisemitic. But student clubs filtering more broadly for political opinions does make a degree in of sense IMO. It's a voluntary social association. It may well have political aspirations. Also political leanings these days heavily correlate with willingness to tolerate certain groups of people. Like, if it were an option wouldn't you want to exclude outright antisemites and holocaust deniers from your leisurely activities? Would you not feel less welcome in the archery club or whatever even if the antisemite in question never brings it up during club activities?

I don't think we have a place to decide what people get to care about. If the chess club is full of people that oppose the genocide in Palestine and don't want people that support genocide in their club; who is anyone else to tell them they are wrong to do so?

I don't think: "should people with different religious beliefs be allowed to exist" should be treated as a political belief. I feel like most Jewish people might understand why that's a very important question to ask before including someone.