Universities like Columbia must end the double standard and stop tolerating campus antisemitism

Columbia University’s president and other college administrators have stated that the chant “From t🌠he river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is permissible political speech.

On an abstract level, they are correct.

It is also permissible for white supremacists to demand all bl▨acks be sent back to Africa and all Muslims to Saudi ꦡArabia.

The First Amendment🍷 prﷺotects homophobic, sexist and transphobic speech too.

But would any school permit such bigoted chants?

Imagine what would happen if a group of white-supremacist students demanded South Africa be returned to white apartheid control: “From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, South Africa should be free of BLACKS and returned t🧜o WHITE control!”

Would any school tolerate such a chant?

Would it take action against such racists?

Of course it would.

T🐓he rac♎ist diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucracy and its bigoted brother “intersectionality” would demand it, and the school would comply.

So the issue is not one of abstract free speech.

It is whe♓ther the school applies the same standard to Jews, ꦅblacks, gays and other minorities.

And with these universit♛ies ♏the answer is clearly no.

What is permis♐sible to say against Jews and Israel would not be permissible to say against blacks or gays. That is the reality.

Universities, whether public or private, should apply a single standard of free s🧸peech, harassment and tolerance for dissenting views.

As the Supreme ﷺCourt has held, there’s no such thing as a false idea under the First Amendment.

There is also no such t𝔉hing as a true or good idea that i🍎s given preference over false or bad ideas.

There must be what we’ll call “a circle of symmetry.”

And what is outside and inside the circl💖e must be based o🐻n neutral principles.

Columbia and other universities must decide whether to ban or permit all racist, sexist, homophobic, 🎐antisemitic and other offensive speech.

They cannot punish anti-black racism w🔥hile tolerating anಞti-Jewish racism, even if the First Amendment protects both.

Columbia and other uni🌳versities must make a decision: apply the First Amendment and permit all forms of bigotry; or design symmetrical neutral rules that protect all gro��ups equally.

What is unacceptable is wha🎉t most universities are doing today: protecting some minorities favored by DEI and intersectionality over Jews and other minorities disfavored by DEI.

This double standard cannot be allowed to become the accepted standard, as it has at Columbia, Harvard and other universities.

Jewsܫ are explicitly second-class citizens under DEI and inters🦩ectionality.

These ideas have been the source of some of 🥃the worst anti-Jewish and anti-Israel demonstrations, petitions and harassment.

As long as these bigoted bureaucracies contin🔜ue to hold sway at universities, corporations and other institutions, Jews will continue to be the object of discriminatory treatment in speech, admissions, hiring and other decisions.

These bureaucracies must be dismantled, uprooted and delegitimized if real equality and meritocracy are ever to be restored, as they𒁃 should be in every institution.

But many universities a𓃲re doubling down on their commitments to these dangerous ideologies.

Presidents, professors and administrators in most schools are 🍷too terrified to challenge ༺these powerful bureaucracies.

But they must if the future of 𓂃America’s great universities is to be preserved.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of “War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism.” Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.