Now more than ever, university faculty must stand together to protect our campuses from the grave threats that we and our students face in the current political climate. Universities across the country risk catastrophic cuts to federal aid, pressure to end programs that support students from marginalized communities, and challenges to our very mission as centers of higher education.
For Jewish faculty, the pressure intensifies even more as political leaders leverage the legitimate fight against campus antisemitism to advance their own anti-intellectual agenda. How can we work against campus antisemitism without inadvertently joining a larger political movement bent on destroying so much of what we hold dear as university professors?
Here, we must be able to turn to unions for support. They are dedicated to providing the working conditions necessary to deliver the best possible education to our students. Unions ensure that each and every student, faculty member and staff member of the university community enjoys physical safety, equal access to educational opportunity and the chance to improve their life and that of their families. Unions push back against those who compromise academic freedom, a central tenet of university life. Most of all, they are a place where each and every professor can go for relief, understanding and support.
Unfortunately, the California Faculty Association, the union that represents me as a California State University professor, has been working against the very goals it purports to advance.
As has been widely reported this fall, the CFA crafted a questionnaire for political candidates seeking its endorsement that included this: “Partnering with the Labor Movement means rejecting campaign contributions and endorsements from groups that harm working people. Do you have endorsements or take contributions from groups and sectors like AIPAC/JPAC, the Oil Industry, the Tobacco Industry, police associations, etc.?”
These words advance a classic antisemitic trope, pure and simple. I write this as the professor who teaches San Francisco State University’s course on antisemitism and as someone who just completed a book about campus antisemitism.
Too many times in history, Jews have been accused of possessing disproportionate power and then leveraging that power to harm the communities around them. According to this mindset, Jews cannot be trusted because they, by their nature, will do all they can to enrich themselves at the cost of larger society.
A simple review of CFA’s own words proves chilling. Placing the name of a Jewish organization, such as JPAC, alongside the names of industries considered harmful to society infers that Jews, as Jews, hold a parallel place of harm. JPAC, short for the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, is an umbrella organization that does not endorse political candidates but does represent about 40 Jewish communal organizations committed to the same social-justice goals that the union purports to support. For example, the Jewish family service agencies represented by JPAC provide critical support to those affected by the current government shutdown and help meet the needs of older adults, people with disabilities, domestic violence survivors, foster youth and food-insecure and unhoused families.
By calling out Jews as Jews and by focusing specifically on a political advocacy group for Jewish organizations statewide, the CFA has affirmed as true the awful antisemitic trope around Jewish power. While we can all agree or disagree with particular policy positions taken by JPAC, AIPAC or any other advocacy group (including the CFA), we cannot and should not isolate Jewish legislative advocacy as harmful, in and of itself.
Many unions embrace a “bread and butter” approach to their work, focusing on securing support for the day-to-day needs of their constituents in the workplace. The CFA, instead, has for many years added an ideological posture to its calls for better working conditions. The CFA has expanded its mission to include policy statements and political positions on many international issues, including on Israel/Palestine. In fact, I resigned as a dues-paying member last year when the union’s post-Oct. 7 anti-Zionist resolutions proved too much to bear.
With its anti-Zionist activism and now antisemitic trope, the CFA needlessly alienates a number of its own constituents who otherwise support the union’s work. This is certainly the case with me.
Now is the time for the CFA to pause and self-reflect. It needs to learn the history of antisemitism and the way that its statement caused harm to its Jewish members and to its very mission of social justice.
To claim that Jews seek political power for the purpose of harming the larger society invites hatred and hostility toward a group of people dedicated to the very humanity that the CFA claims as its core mission.
Thankfully, the CFA has committed to “more closely” review its questionnaire process. But the union has also offered a woefully inadequate apology that fails to acknowledge its antisemitism in clear terms and does not actually commit to ensuring this never happens again.
We need a CFA that welcomes everyone. Doing so would allow the CFA to become a stronger and more effective union. At a time when we all need to work together, with our differences, the CFA has drawn an antisemitic line in the sand. The CFA must wash that line away, so that we can all join our common fight, together.