Amcha Initiative Starts Campaign to Block Anti-Zionist and Antisemitic Faculty for "Justice" in Palestine

AMCHA Initiative is proud to announce the launch of our national campaign to combat faculty antisemitism, beginning with efforts to stop Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), a network of 170 faculty chapters established after Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The primary mission of FJP members is to exploit their academic positions and departmental resources to actively promote the academic boycott of Israel (academic BDS) by engaging in actions to rid their campuses of Zionism and Zionists, shut down educational opportunities and stifle free speech.

To kick off the campaign, AMCHA coordinated a letter from over 120 organizations to university presidents at institutions with FJP chapters. The letter highlights the dangers of FJP for Jewish members of the campus community and the need for safeguards to prevent faculty abuse.

FJP is linked to the U.S. affiliate of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which has ties to terrorist organizations, including Hamas. Our research has revealed that FJP's presence on campuses significantly heightens risks for Jewish students, increasing the likelihood of physical assaults sevenfold and the likelihood of threats of violence threefold. FJP also "prolonged" the duration of encampment protests, which were likely to last over four and half times longer on campuses where FJP faculty were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students. And academic boycott calls were nearly 11 times more likely in student demands on campuses with FJP chapters, indicating academic BDS campaigns are faculty-driven.

FJP's academic boycott extends beyond Israeli institutions, targeting pro-Israel students and faculty on U.S. campuses for exclusion, shutting down educational and research opportunities, refusing dialogue with Jewish organizations and bullying students and faculty who support Israel. More information on the harms of academic BDS can be found in the video.

In addition to our new educational videos on the dangers of FJP and the harms of academic BDS, we will soon be releasing a new metric for ranking schools by their levels of anti-Zionist faculty activity, that will provide the public with a crucial indicator of how welcoming or hostile a campus is likely to be for its Jewish students.

AMCHA is calling for immediate action. Policymakers and administrators must curb academic BDS and faculty abuse to safeguard campus safety and academic integrity.

Together, we can hold faculty accountable and combat the rise of faculty-fueled campus antisemitism.

Join us!

#NoFacultyHarm

#NoAcademicBDS

AMCHA Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about, and combating antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America.