NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: University Leaders Say ‘Organized Networks,’ Including Iran, Drove Anti-Israel Campus Unrest.
Several leaders of prominent universities on Monday said they believe the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations that broke out on campuses across the United States during the Jewish state’s war against Hamas were not organic, instead telling a panel audience they believe “organized networks,” and even foreign governments, may have driven the unrest.
Leaders of notable U.S. universities had not offered many thoughts on the connections between campus protests and outside groups before Monday’s discussion on combating anti-Semitism. During the event, though, Syracuse University chancellor Kent Syverud brought up Iran in particular.
“I really believe [the demonstrations] were encouraged from Iran,” Syverud said. “It did not have the involvement of very many—if any—of our own students.”
Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier agreed, saying the anti-Israel movement on his campus seemed to have been coordinated by outside forces and followed a “playbook” that “was imported” from other universities.
“There was, not a large group, maybe 30-plus students or something, but they were using the playbook that they had seen at Columbia and other places,” he said. “It was the same messaging. So, it’s more than a social contagion. I think they’re organized networks as well.”
“Leaders of notable U.S. universities” certainly didn’t appear to do very much to stop the protests in the wake of October 7th, however. As VDH wrote in December of 2023, “After October 7, the public was shocked at what they saw and heard on America’s campuses. Americans knew previously they were intolerant, leftwing, and increasingly non-meritocratic. But immediately after October 7 — and even before the response of the Israeli Defense Forces — the sheer student delight on news of the mass murdering of Israeli victims seemed akin more to 1930s Germany than contemporary America.”