It’s about 15 months late, but two bills proposed in New York’s Legislature aim to fight back against the rising tide of antisemitism on campuses across the state.
One, the ACCESS Act, would make it easier for students to sue colleges whose administrations allow discriminatory harassment to go unchecked; another would require dedicated anti-discrimination coordinators to guard Title VI rights at every campus.
Good. This is a start … but only that.
Recall: Starting literally the day after the massacres of Oct. 7, colleges in New York and elsewhere exploded with full-throated support for Hamas and its butchers.
Pro-terror thugs assaulted and intimated Jews on campus, occupied public spaces and buildings and echoed Hamas’ calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and the genocide of its Jewish inhabitants — and this went on for months.
The response of the schools themselves, public and private, was … “Fine by us!”
Just last week, Cooper Union got slammed in court for arguing literally that students besieged in the school library by rampaging protesters would’ve been fine if they’d just hidden in the attic or fled campus entirely.
The state’s political leadership has been equally cowardly.
Even condemning the Jew-hate proved a bridge too far for most, with a few notable exceptions like Reps. Ritchie Torres and Elise Stefanik (who’s now set to fight the good fight at the UN).
So it’s good that Empire State Dems are making even these minimal moves on the issue.
But vastly more needs to be done.
Like ending the COVID repeal of the state’s anti-masking law.
And really holding the leadership of the state’s public university systems to account for enabling pogroms on campus.
While these bills are a tiny and uncertain ray of light amid the darkness, it remains to be seen if New York’s considerable pro-Hamas legislative caucus will allow their passage.
Make no mistake: Jew-hatred is alive and well in New York, home to a significant chunk of the world’s Jewish population.
As long as the woke left holds any real sway here, that will never change.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
