AMCHA Launches National Campaign to Combat ‘Faculty for Justice in Palestine’

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Montecruz Foto

Pro-Hamas rally.

The AMCHA Initiative, a prominent organization combating antisemitism on US campuses, on Tuesday announced the launch of a nationwide campaign against Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP).

The FJP, a network of nearly 200 faculty chapters established after the events of October 7, 2023, has come under fire from AMCHA for what it describes as the misuse of academic platforms to amplify antisemitism and disseminate rhetoric challenging Israel’s right to exist.

This development underscores the intensifying debate over free speech, academic freedom, and the boundaries of acceptable discourse on college campuses in the wake of the ongoing Middle East conflict.

Activism, not antisemitism.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) claim to stand for solidarity, safety, and justice; those words are meaningless if you celebrate Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

? @Facts_For_Peace pic.twitter.com/2yPJFlb27s

— Embassy of Israel to the USA (@IsraelinUSA) November 15, 2024

“According to our antisemitism tracker, since 10/7/23 physical assaults on Jewish students have surged 2500% and violent threats have risen 900%. And while attention has focused on students and student-led groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), it is in fact faculty who are, on many campuses, at the root of the Jew-hatred and harassment our students are experiencing,” stated Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA’s director and a faculty member at the University of California for nearly two decades.

MASTERMINDS BEHIND NATIONWIDE ANTISEMITIC CAMPAIGN

AMCHA Initiative this fall completed research that found FJP plays an astonishing role in escalating antisemitic incidents and fomenting anti-Israel activity.

The new research, published on September 26 and titled, “Academic Extremism: How a Faculty Network Fuels Campus Unrest and Antisemitic Violence,” presented compelling data linking the activities of FJP chapters to a significant rise in physical assaults, violent threats, and lengthy protest actions that target Jewish students for harm.

“Our investigation alarmingly reveals that campuses with FJP chapters are seeing assaults and death threats against Jewish students at rates multiple times higher than those without FJP groups, providing compelling evidence of the dangerous intersection between faculty activism and violent antisemitic behavior. The presence of FJP chapters also correlates with the extended duration of protests and encampments, as well as with the passage of BDS resolutions on their campuses,” wrote the researchers.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST FJP

As part of its newly launched campaign against Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), the AMCHA Initiative coordinated a letter signed by more than 120 organizations addressed to the presidents of 170 universities hosting FJP chapters. Sent today, the letter raised concerns about alleged findings regarding FJP activities and urged university leaders to implement “robust safeguards and enforcement mechanisms” to prevent faculty from leveraging their academic roles and affiliations to engage in ideologically driven activism that “directly targets their own students and colleagues” for harm.

The signatories represent a broad coalition of faculty, student, and community groups, as well as civil rights and religious organizations. Among them are the Alliance of Blacks and Jews, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, B’nai B’rith, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Chabad, Hillel, and the World Jewish Congress. Other notable contributors include the Beverly Hills Synagogue, the Jewish Studies Zionist Network, the Daniel Pearl Foundation, Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors, and Faculty Against Antisemitism groups at institutions such as NYU and UCLA.

This collective action reflects growing tensions over how university policies address academic freedom, activism, and campus safety amid heightened scrutiny of Middle East-related discourse.

The new AMCHA campaign to combat faculty antisemitism will include comprehensive efforts at the campus, K-12, state, and federal levels to promote the establishment of policies and laws preventing faculty from using their academic positions, university resources, and taxpayer dollars to engage in politically motivated behavior that incites antisemitism and stifles the educational opportunities and free speech of their students and colleagues.

AMCHA on Tuesday also released to the public an educational video on the dangers of FJP and has created a video on the harms of academic BDS. Soon, AMCHA will be releasing a new ranking system that rates schools by level of faculty abuse.

FJP: US TERRORISTS’ SUPPORTERS’ ORIGIN STORY

Faculty for Justice in Palestine, established by the U.S. affiliate of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), has become a focal point of AMCHA Initiative’s recent campaign. PACBI is reportedly linked to five U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas. Since its inception, FJP has grown to include chapters on 170 university campuses.

FJP’s stated mission involves leveraging academic roles and departmental resources to advance an academic boycott of Israel, known as academic BDS, with actions aimed at eliminating Zionism and Zionist perspectives from university spaces. AMCHA also alleges that many FJP-affiliated faculty members are involved in promoting ethnic studies curricula in K-12 schools, which it claims include anti-Israel content that incites hostility toward Jews.

These activities have intensified debate over the intersection of academic freedom, activism, and campus inclusivity amid a broader national conversation on antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

During their graduation ceremony at the University of California, law students raised the Palestinian Kufiya and demanded university divest from ‘Israel’ to end the genocide. pic.twitter.com/y2RiNgej0r

— PALESTINE ONLINE ?? (@OnlinePalEng) May 12, 2024

A recent analysis by the AMCHA Initiative alleges a significant correlation between the presence of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapters and heightened risks faced by Jewish students on U.S. college campuses. According to the report, campuses with FJP chapters saw more than a sevenfold increase in the likelihood of physical assaults on Jewish students and a threefold rise in threats of violence and death against them.

The report also highlighted FJP’s role in prolonging campus encampment protests, with such demonstrations lasting over 4.5 times longer at schools where FJP-affiliated faculty were actively involved in supporting student activists through logistical and material assistance. Faculty at FJP-affiliated campuses were reportedly involved in protest activities nearly 10 times longer than their counterparts at non-FJP schools. Furthermore, academic boycott demands were 11 times more likely to appear in student activism at FJP-affiliated campuses, underscoring the faculty-driven nature of academic BDS campaigns.

AMCHA also raised concerns about the scope of FJP’s academic boycott, which extends beyond Israeli institutions to target pro-Israel students and faculty in the U.S. The group claims this has led to the exclusion of individuals, the curtailing of educational and research opportunities, a refusal to engage with Jewish organizations, and the bullying of students and faculty who express support for Israel.

These findings come amid growing debates over the role of faculty activism and its impact on campus inclusivity and student safety, particularly as discussions around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensify.