Northwestern University required mandatory viewing of an anti-Semitism training video to comply with President Trump’s crackdown on campus harassment and abuse of Jews. At least 300 of the school’s 22,000 students have boycotted the training, so the university barred them from registering for fall classes. Northwestern also requires students to watch anti-bias training regarding Muslims, and its email to the campus earlier this year announced that the new anti-Semitism training “will adhere to federal policy” in compliance with the President’s January executive order “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.”
Indoctrination is indoctrination, and the subject of the indoctrination is irrelevant. The students who are refusing this abuse of education are right and principled, and I hope they refuse to fold.
The 17-minute video was produced by the Jewish United Fund and claims to teach students about “who Jews are, how Jews understand themselves, and how anti-Semitism has morphed throughout time.” The video defines anti-Zionism, which has gained popularity among radical anti-Israel protesters, as “the opposition to the Jewish right of self-determination,” warning that anti-Zionism “takes many forms, most of which are anti-Semitic because they work against Jewish human rights.”
Maybe it’s effective propaganda and maybe the video is generally or mostly true, but such a video is also an advocacy piece, and as with the Al Gore climate change hysteria film that my son was forced to watch at his over-priced private school where he attended 7th grade until we pulled him out of it, it is not the job or role of educational institutions to force their beliefs and political positions on their students.
“Sensitivity training,” “anti-bias training,” and any similar mandatory programs aimed at brainwashing attendees and eliminating “WrongThink” are unethical and abuses of power that are absolutely contrary to our nation’s values. The practice is indistinguishable from the “re-education camps” of the former Soviet Union. That current practitioners from the Left or the Right do not put cages with hungry rats in them on their victims’ faces doesn’t change the fact that the objective is the same: “Change how you think, or else.”
True: it would be nice if the boycotting students were also similarly sensitive to the unethical nature of indoctrination that aligns with their belief systems, in part the product of indoctrination.
But one has to start standing up for principles somewhere.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m surprised we haven’t seen universities simply redefining what anti-semitism means to be anti-Arab rather than simply anti-Jewish….
In the months leading up to our graduation from our Marist Brothers run high school in 1969 (remember, this was the ’60s), chunks of the senior class were taken on off-site “retreats” by the brothers, who were led by the then more aggressive, what I’ll call “guitar mass,” Catholic brothers on the faculty. They were all young and kind of playing with pop psychology. One night during the retreat, they kept us up late. It was clearly a sleep-deprivation play intended to break down our resistance to what they were pushing. Having had enough, I spoke up and said, “I think it’s time for all of us to go to bed,” and walked out and went to bed. Funny how those things stick with you. And recur!
I’m confused how does mandatory viewing associated with cracking down on harassment? This seems to be merely a ploy by the university to do as little as possible. Cracking down on harassers means being willing to impose increasingly more costly sanctions on students who harass others.
These university students are hardly heroes if they did not also object to forcing students to watch the anti-Muslim film.
The Department of Education is demanding that schools who receive federal funds take steps to protect students from others who are holding them responsible for the Palestinian issue brought on by Hamas when the victim fights back and is winning. Some were denied access to campus resources which they had a right to access. This was a denial of rights by the same students who are being held out as ethics heroes.
I have found all forms of required training relating to socialization that is not simply general in nature to be unethical. If these videos/films were part of an introductory sociology course it would be acceptable as a learning tool. I strongly believe that all university provided media should be available for all students irrespective of their registration in a particular course. But, to require viewing prior to being able to register among returning students is coerced mind control. New students can decide whether they want to go to a school that will force them to watch indoctrination videos.
Oh, it doesn’t, any more than the “mandatory anti-bias CLE” that I once foolishly agreed to teach (I needed the money) actually had anything to do with stopping lawyers from being biased. It’s all virtue-signalling: if they were serious, the videos and trainings would be replaced by what the State did to poor Malcolm McDowell in “A Clockwork Orange”…but ineffective indoctrination is still indoctrination, and I say to hell with it.
Why single out NWU for mandatory viewing of said video?
When I was still employed all employees had mandatory sexual harassment training as required by New York State law; employees needed to sign off on this afterwards. Refusal to participate could lead to job termination. Come to think about it, this is also indoctrination. (I resent being bashed over the head with feminist talking points about toxic male behavior while in June my employer waves gay pride flags in my face … just keep the sexuality out the workplace please.)
I fail to see the difference between mandatory sexual harassment training, and the requirement of NWU to view the video. If any university does not want to show the required video, they are free to forego receiving tax payer funding.
Given all the pro-Hamas demonstrations at various universities since October 7th, 2003 creating a Jew-hostile climate at various campuses, it may be good for universities to train their students in how to properly exercise their civic responsibilities.
In our efforts to promote free speech we should also have proper priorities. At universities where conservatives have had to walk on eggshells for decades and Jews have to hide that they are Jews for their own safety, we should not all of a sudden jump into action on behalf of the pro-Hamas crowd so they do not have to watch a video. Battles need to be picked wisely.
There’s a big difference. Sexual harassment law is weird, constantly changing and confounding, and people don’t understand what the law is, what constitutes harassment under the law, and when the ethics alarms should go off. It’s not indoctrination: you don’t have to like the law or company policies of approve of them, but you’d better understand them and follow them. Information is not opinion. Information is not indoctrination. competent sexual harassment training doesn’t tell you how you must think about social interaction, it tells you want isn’t permitted by policy and law in the workplace.
I agree. Our university also had training in reporting requirements (some of us are mandatory reporters if a student shares that they have experienced a sexual assault, some are not). The sometimes conflicting requirements of federal mandates, state mandates, certification bodies and university conduct rules can make it hard to know what is required, what is recommended but not required depending on one’s role, what is protected information that may NOT be disclosed without permission, etc.
Also, in a university context the same person may inhabit several different roles with different requirements over the course of a single day (i.e., faculty talking to a student in one’s class, faculty acting as an official advisor of a student, faculty reviewing videos of clinical training of a graduate student in an APA certified clinical training program. Also some college students are younger than 18 (and sometimes local high school students participate in some university activities) which triggers a different rule set than students who are 18 or older…
The training also tells you who to consult if you have come to know of some potential reporting situation and aren’t sure how to interpret it re the rules.
I’m not sure you’re proceeding from a correct assumption here. I took your comments to mean that you think the students boycotting this are perhaps Jewish, doing so out of principle against indoctrination decrees.
My assumption — and its only an assumption — is that it is more than likely these students are Hamas / anti-semites who refuse to see something that is not anti-semitic or some similar rationale.
Perhaps I’m being too cynical, but if that is the case, does it change your thoughts?
No, I assume they are pro-Palestinian. It doesn’t matter. They can think what they want to, and the school has no right to force them or try to force them to submit to their indoctrination efforts.
Except that they know they’ll get in to the next university – conservative students have to hide who they are to administration and take the indoctrination.
The board is still tilted in favor of the pro-murderous-asshole-supporters.
Now they’re being treated the way they treat others and want to bitch about it?
Bite me.
Every student should refuse to watch the video. It’s the only way to stop universities from doing this. And DEI videos. And CRT videos. And climate change videos. And social justice videos. All of them.
Except that students can’t opt out of poli-sci 101, which is indoctrination required by the university to graduate.
You can say they can go to another university, but, oh, wait, 99.99% of schools have the same bias.
At what point is it ethical to acknowledge the functional reality?
If the government has laws against discrimination, and it applies to the universities receiving federal money, well, there you go. We can debate the ethics of government mandating equality in society, but government has an interst in maintaining order, as well. We have it lucky in this country where we have a hand in government, so we can have these debates.
But it can quickly be turned against us all, as the mayor of Dearborn so eloquently shows us. Functional reality.