Biden's ed sec Miguel Cardona calls out 'hate' on both sides of campus Gaza Camp protests

Campuses across the United States have sprouted their own Gaza Camps where student agitators and activists have gathered to demand that their universities divest from Israel. In response to the vile, antisemitic rhetoric coming from many participants, Biden's education secretary Miguel Cardona has said that those on both sides need to eradicate hate. 

In a thread, he said, "All education leaders must stand definitively against hate, antisemitism, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim sentiment." On college campuses, the "hate" has only been going one way: toward Jewish and Israeli students. But for Cardona, sticking up for Jewish students alone is not an option. However, Cardona recently eradicated sex-based protections for women on college campuses in new rules for Title IX. 

"Antisemitic hate on college campuses is unacceptable," he began, before equivocating. "I am deeply concerned by what is happening at Columbia University. In November 2023, our Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation of Columbia involving Title VI. 

"While we can’t comment on pending investigations," he continued, "every student deserves to feel a sense of safety and belonging at school. Hate has no place in our schools. All education leaders must stand definitively against hate, antisemitism, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim sentiment." 

Cardona's remarks mirrored those of his boss Joe Biden, who said on Monday during an Earth Day even "I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians." This after he was asked about the "antisemitic protests on college campuses." 

In many instances for Biden and Cardona, there can be no blanket condemnation of antisemitism without also calling out anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment. This even though the protesters who have taken up residence on campus public spaces are opposing the nation of Israel's war against Palestinian terror group Hamas and prohibiting, sometimes violently, Jewish students from entering those areas on campus. 

This sentiment, of blaming those who are being attacked for having the folly to have been attacked, also sprung up after the Islamic terror attacks on New York City on September 11, 2001.  

Within days of that attack, which stole the lives of more than 3,000 Americans, pundits were calling for Americans to blame America for the violence bestowed upon it.