On January 17th, Laura Rosenbury, the president of Barnard College, called sociology professor Debbie Becher into her office to discuss an event Becher was helping plan alongside several Jewish students: a screening and discussion of the documentary Israelism, which chronicles young American Jews’ disaffection with Zionism. Joined by provost and dean of the faculty Linda Bell, Rosenbury told Becher to “pause” the screening, according to notes of the meeting Becher kept. Rosenbury acknowledged at the outset that it was “hard to think of [Israelism] as an antisemitic film.” Nevertheless, she wanted the screening indefinitely postponed due to fears that it would trigger legal action against the school under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars schools receiving federal funding from creating or permitting a “hostile environment” for students on the basis of race or national origin—and mandates that colleges found to have violated the statute must come to an agreement with the federal government to change policies or risk being stripped of their federal funding. ….more
