Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from an article originally published on Heterodox Stem on June 11, 2025. With (some) edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission.
Author’s Note: This is a relatively long article for Heterodox STEM, and the theme is puzzling. What does the evolution of anti-Semitism have to do with STEM? The answer is that elite universities have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism due to woke/DEI/Islamist influence, that the discrimination has provided the Trump administration legal grounds for rolling this influence back, and that funding for scientific research is caught in the crossfire. One countercharge is that campus anti-Semitism is blown way out of proportion relative to white supremacist agitation in the boondocks, in which case universities should likely just dig in their heels. I will show that the countercharge is false by drawing on data from a surprising source: an organization that is proudly supportive of DEI and actively hostile to white supremacy.
Recent terrorist attacks on Jews in the U.S. have been met with a mixture of shock, dismay, and attempts at denial. Their leftist/Islamist face defies the widespread belief that anti-Semitic extremism is mainly right-wing white nationalism. One influential promoter of that belief is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In April 2022, it noted “an acute threat of antisemitic terrorism … which is overwhelmingly from right-wing extremists and in particular white supremacists.” In November 2023, it warned of “a steady rise of right-wing terrorism in the US [since 2008 with] no likelihood of significantly decreasing soon.” Its annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, published less than two months ago, refers 13 times to “white supremacist” or “right wing” but never to “left wing” or “Islamist”.
The Audit draws on an ADL-compiled database of Hateful, Extremist, Anti-Semitic, and Terrorist incidents, called “H.E.A.T. MapTM” (hereafter “HEAT”). The Audit is widely cited in the press and helps mold public consensus. For example, when ChatGPT or Grok are asked for summary data on terrorism, they mainly cite the ADL. Unfortunately, the ADL’s reports are greatly distorted, partly by what they present and more by what they leave out. They grossly exaggerate right-wing transgressions and grossly understate leftist/Islamist transgressions.
Nowadays, the most virulent form of anti-Semitism aims to free Israel of Jews. It is the form observed on elite college campuses, pretending to social justice and draped in keffiyehs. Its effect is greater than all other forms combined, and rightist white-nationalist influence there is negligible.
Combining all anti-Semitic incidents recorded in HEAT for 2024, I estimate 14 percent right-wing, 57 percent left-wing, 23 percent left/Islamist, and six percent Islamist. (The last two categories likely encompass some black nationalist influence that HEAT obscures). The right-wing share would drop below five percent if HEAT recorded incidents more fairly and took effect into account. For example, HEAT rated one rightist bomb hoax emailed simultaneously to 29 nearby synagogues as nearly twice as significant as all the hostage posters vandalized in Manhattan over the course of 2024. Also, right-wing incidents tended to involve small publicity stunts or one-on-one harassment.
The new landscape is also marked by Holocaust inversion. References to Nazi predations now do less to inoculate against Jew-hatred than to add venom to it. Israelis are equated to Nazis. Jews are painted as culprits in their past and future demise
Many readers will find this hard to believe. It seems to defy U.S. history, to ridicule refined political sympathies, to slander the ADL, and to whitewash hateful whites. Let me start by addressing these concerns from a big-picture perspective, without any statistical analysis. While this will not convince anyone that I am right, hopefully it will persuade you that I might not be wrong…
Read the entire article here and find out more about campus anti-Semitism here.
Image: “Anti-Israel protest encounter with Rudy Rochman, George Washington University, Washington, DC” by Ted Eytan on Flickr
