As we pass the midpoint of the fall 2026 semester, it feels almost like a reprieve. Gone are the encampments, the occupation of campus buildings, and the constant disruption of classes. Sure, antisemitic speakers like Hasan Piker or James Fishback still cause the odd campus temperature spike, but compared to the last few years, things have visibly quieted down.
This relative calm is certainly welcome, especially to those of us who wish to continue laboring under the delusion that our primary roles on campus involve teaching or research. It is more welcome still to Jewish students, faculty, and staff, who have spent the last three years navigating record levels of antisemitism documented by the ADL, Hillel, the Brandeis Center, the American Jewish Committee, and others.
However, societal antisemitism hasn’t calmed down. Per the FBI’s crime statistics, U.S. Jews are still disproportionately victimized by hate crime, and while American academia might be enjoying a relative lull, research by the Canadian government shows that our northern neighbors are not so fortunate—and our European colleagues aren’t faring much better.
More importantly, American universities have done virtually nothing to address the conditions that made the last three years of virulent Jew-hatred possible. Lawsuits, Title VI investigations, congressional hearings, and institutional reports like those from Harvard and Columbia have all documented the harassment, intimidation, violence, vandalism, and discrimination that have occurred over the last three years, but they ignore the more fundamental question of why these events occurred.
Why did so many university students, in the wake of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, respond by repeating Soviet antisemitic tropes—whose history and relevance to contemporary “antizionism” have been well documented by scholars like Torkel Brekke, Stephen Norwood, and Sina Arnold?
Why did so many university students, in the wake of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, respond by repeating Soviet antisemitic tropes?
Why did they so readily adopt ahistorical, romanticized histories of the Middle East that attribute all regional issues to the foundation of Israel and ignore Jews’ historical status as dhimmis under numerous Muslim regimes? Why did they deny countless episodes of persecution and violence, as well as the continuous presence of Jews in the region? Despite their popularity, the claims of an idyllic pre-1948 Middle East don’t survive the barest modicum of scrutiny, having been debunked decades ago by historians like Mark Cohen and Bernard Lewis and more recently by scholars like Matthias Küntzel and Daniel Allington.
Why did some bully, threaten, and assault fellow students in the name of social justice, sympathize with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the IRGC, tear down hostage posters, and minimize—or even deny—the atrocities of October 7? Why did so many students parrot old conspiracy theories by simply substituting “Zionist” for “Jew”? More fundamentally, why did so many treat one of the modern world’s most complex geopolitical conflicts as something reducible to a two-minute TikTok?
Although it might be tempting to blame actors outside higher education—Iran, Qatar, Students for Justice in Palestine, or others—for these protests, such explanations are incomplete. Organizations including the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), the Network Contagion Research Institute, and even Congress have documented how outside entities shaped, organized, and amplified campus antisemitism. Nonetheless, such influence would have been impossible if our institutions of higher learning had not fundamentally failed a core part of their mission: student development.
From Thomas Jefferson to John Henry Newman to Mortimer Adler to Anthony Kronman, a central part of higher education’s mission has been our role in shaping not only what students learn, but who they become. This does not mean telling them what to think or what conclusions they should reach. It means creating an environment of intellectual curiosity, rigor, and self-reflection that pushes students—regardless of politics—to ask who they are and what they want to accomplish.
Unfortunately, higher education has increasingly acted as if our primary function is mere information transmission. Not only is this a betrayal of our developmental mission—it’s unsustainable. We are never going to outcompete GitHub, Substack, YouTube, or Reddit on information access. Universities still offer unique advantages—scholars, research opportunities, libraries, laboratories—but none are the same as development. As leader development scholar David Day emphasizes, development is a longitudinal process involving changes not only in skills, but in identity, self-understanding, and interpersonal capacity. It is not passive or incidental. It requires intentionality, time, and dedication, and none of these are easy—but they are necessary.
Unfortunately, higher education has increasingly acted as if our primary function is mere information transmission.
Student development is not a matter of guesswork, good intentions, or “vibes.” It requires students to wrestle seriously with difficult and meaningful questions, and do the identity work necessary to incorporate what they learn into a clearer understanding of themselves. Work from Ryan Brown and colleagues at Rice University’s Doerr Institute (where, full disclosure, I also work), for example, has experimentally demonstrated that meaningful developmental initiatives can produce changes in students’ leader identity, self-concept clarity, purpose, and intellectual humility. The point is not simply for students to know more when they graduate. It is for them to become different people—people better equipped to put that knowledge to good use.
Meaningful development is an empirical question. There is a rich research literature describing what it looks like, how it happens, and what it produces. Development requires time and intentionality. It requires students to encounter intellectual, personal, and values-based challenges, while also having opportunities to reflect on those experiences and incorporate them into their developing sense of self. Importantly, none of this requires producing students with a particular political ideology—nor should it!
These developmental outcomes have been notably absent from campus discourse around antisemitism over the last three years. Activists have protested and threatened not only Jewish voices, but even Palestinian ones deemed insufficiently pro-”resistance.” Campus demonstrators have worn and displayed Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations’ paraphernalia while invoking “martyrs” and “resistance.” Antisemitic blood libels have been repackaged and justified as mere criticism of Israel. Jewish students and faculty have been excluded from organizations—sometimes even physically attacked—because of presumed ties to Israel. None of this resembles intellectual humility, comfort with complexity, or serious engagement with difficult ideas—it’s just a toxic cocktail of ideological certainty and social conformity.
There absolutely must be a reckoning for the last three years of antisemitism. Specific wrongs occurred, real harms were committed, and Jewish students, faculty, and staff were hurt. Institutions owe them more than vague statements about belonging and promises to do “better.” We also need concrete plans for what will happen if antisemitism flares again on campuses—because while the tents might have gone away, antisemitism certainly hasn’t.
Popular figures of all political stripes have figured out that Jew-hatred can be a profitable business model. On the Right, figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and failed gubernatorial candidate-turned-campus speaker James Fishback have made blatant antisemitism central to their brands. On the Left, people like Cenk Uygur, his nephew Hasan Piker, former NBC anchor Mehdi Hasan, and TikTok student celebrity Guy Christensen have done the same. Antisemitism sells.
The solution will not simply be another policy, especially when enforcement risks chilling the free speech and intellectual freedom essential to higher education. Developing students into intellectually humble, purposeful citizens can cut this off at the root. Put another way, the solution to campus antisemitism isn’t banning Hasan Piker or James Fishback—it’s developing students who are simply uninterested in inviting Jew-hating grifters onto campus in the first place.
Developing students into intellectually humble, purposeful citizens can cut this off at the root.
The need for student development goes beyond antisemitism. Even if Israel and Palestine resolved their differences tomorrow and, magically, antisemitism disappeared from the public discourse, there would always be another polarizing issue to take its place—AI, climate change, war, elections, or some other cause du jour yet to be imagined. However, while the particulars will change, the developmental challenge to higher education will not. Higher education can only meet that challenge if it re-embraces its role of developing students into citizens able to use knowledge wisely, engage difficult questions seriously, and navigate disagreement productively. The next controversy is inevitable. Whether our students are developmentally prepared to meet it is not.
Dr. Aaron Pomerantz is the Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation at Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. His research examines how culture and ideology leads individuals and groups to support beliefs and behaviors that harm themselves and others. His public commentary has been published at The Hill, The Houston Chronicle, and RealClearPolitics.