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Jonathan Marks

Jonathan Marks

Jonathan Marks is a Professor of Politics at Ursinus College and publishes in modern and contemporary political philosophy in journals like the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of American Political Science, and the Review of Politics. He is the author of Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Marks also has written on higher education for InsideHigherEd, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal. He blogs occasionally at Commentary Magazine.

All stories by: Jonathan Marks

Academic Freedom Is Under Siege by Anti-Israel Politics

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which boasts over 2,800 members, has long been a friend of anti-Israel advocacy. The historian Martin Kramer, considering what was on offer at MESA’s 2005 conference, wrote that “for MESAns, the Palestinians are the chosen people, and…

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Discrimination Can Be Rewarding

Last year, I wrote about a settlement in the case of Volk v. Board of Trustees. At the center of that case was one incident, in which the Jewish campus organization, Hillel, was intentionally excluded from the “Know Your Rights” fair at…

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A Slap in the Face from George Washington University

In December 2013, after the American Studies Association endorsed a boycott of Israel, George Washington University joined many other institutions in opposing the boycott. The language was rather tepid, to be sure: the University affirmed that it would continue its “multiple…

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A Slap in the Face at Scripps College

I’ve written about Rutgers University Professor Jasbir Puar before, so let me limit myself to a few observations. Puar, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, has a problem: BDS wishes to accuse Israel of genocide, but Israel isn’t…

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A Model Response to BDS

In 2014, a group of scholar-activists, Historians Against the War (HAW), endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The following year, HAW rolled out two resolutions on Israeli’s alleged crimes against academic freedom. They asked the American Historical Association (AHA), the “largest…

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A New Strategy on Campus: Blame the Jews

In a riveting and sad New York Times op-ed, Blake Flayton, a student at George Washington University and a “gay abortion rights advocate and environmentalist,” explained why his fellow progressives call him a “baby killer” and “apartheid enabler.” Like 95 percent of…

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Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad, BDS Movement?

To the extent that Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement supporters can claim their effort to isolate Israel is a success, they note how it has integrated itself within in academic circles. In her 2018 book, Boycott, for example, Susaina…

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Real Anti-Semitism on Campus

At Ithaca College, of six “bias-related incidents” reported in 2017-18, three were “cases of aggravated harassment involving swastikas.” One Jewish student there reported that a mezuzah “was knocked off of his door and damaged.” At Western Washington University’s library, seven…

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