The resignation of the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill for misspeaking before a congressional committee regarding university anti-Semitism is further evidence that the woke movement on campus is out of control. The presidents of Harvard and MIT should also face either suspension or removal as well, if only for the symbolic effect such acts create. Along with many other university leaders, they have administered a culture of arrogance, violence, threats, and intimidation on their campuses.  This goes far beyond the three universities that went before Congress last week. 

The wave of hate coming from colleges is far from new. What makes it different is that it is getting media exposure. Having interviewed conservative students on woke campuses, I can assure you that the hate has been there for years. Students have told me of being shoved, intimidated, and taunted on college campuses. When they turned to the universities for protection, they were dismissed, the same as Jewish students today: “These people are just expressing their views.” The colleges and universities suddenly found copies of the Constitution and supported the First Amendment.

We all remember 2020, the “Summer of Love,” when Antifa, students, and others rioted, looted, and attacked law enforcement. The media downplayed the chaos, and political leaders went out of their way to justify it and did nothing to bring it into check. After all, its goal was to create a destabilized environment that would erode President Trump’s support.

This silent encouragement emboldened students on campus. They feel they can do or say anything with no repercussions. Chanting their hate-filled messages targeting Jewish students was all an extension of the fun and games they got to play in 2020. They took the side of rapists, murderers, and kidnappers. They tore down posters of the victims of the October attack, as if the posters were somehow offensive.

The American university system has brought forth monsters that it can no longer control or justify. It was all fun and games when it was about rioting to prevent Donald Trump from being elected. Now it has become ugly. Worse, the media did not shield the offenders this time. People saw U.S. college students mimicking what German youth did in the late 1930s, against the same people. There is no way that parents could have seen some of these student protests and not cringed out of fear that their child might be a part of it.

Taking out the leaders who created this culture will not have the desired effect. The college leadership has been so heavily infiltrated by the extreme Left that removing a single person will change nothing. The students that have taken part in these vile protests need to be disciplined, including expulsion. Parents of these students need to have their children sent home with their futures imperiled.

Governors need to look at the leadership of  state universities where such anti-Semitic protests have taken place and immediately remove the entire leadership, replacing it with people committed to fostering a safe learning environment. Making a few sacrificial cuts will not do. People need to know that this is a serious matter and that there are real-world implications for allowing this kind of activity.  If campuses do not comply with adopting cultures where this kind of hate is prohibited, they need to lose their state and federal funding.

This climate of hate on campuses has been allowed to fester for far too long. The dismissal of Liz Magill is a start. We should not make her a lone sacrificial lamb. The time has come to change our campus culture for the positive.

Blaine Pardoe is a New York Times Bestselling and award-winning author cancelled by one of his publishers in 2022. He is a regular contributor to a number of conservative sites. His conservative political thriller series, Blue Dawn, includes A Most Uncivil War, Confederacy of Fear, and No Greater Tyranny. This series tells the story of the violent overthrow of the government by radical progressives. He also authors the bestselling military science fiction series, Land&Sea.

Image: Ted Eytan