Sarah Lawrence College knew students were planning antisemitic ‘protest’ of Ezra Klein but let it happen anyway

The "timely conversation" with New York Times columnist Klein was intended to focus on the topic of "how we can collectively move beyond polarization toward shared solutions." The students who stormed in were clearly not aligned with that message.

The idea was to talk about why American politics is so polarized, the consequences of that polarization, and what to do about it. Sarah Lawrence has long been a hot-bed of leftist ideology and thought, but it was not always a place where alternative views could have no hearing.

But instead, just ahead of the talk, a small group of students stood up and started yelling about Gaza. Klein tried to get their attention, asking them why they thought he denies what's going in Gaza. They kept yelling while Klein asked them to talk to him directly. They would not.

"I don't think you know what I think," Klein said as the activists broke into chants of "free, free Palestine." When the students were done they marched out.

In their wake, Judd said "Welcome to Sarah Lawrence." She did nothing while the students were disrupting the conversation. Judd just sat there and let it happen, she didn't engage with the students or encourage them to engage with her or Klein. It was like an art happening, as far as she was concerned.

Klein was on campus to talk about his latest book Abundance, which "explores how America can break through stagnation and rekindle a sense of shared national possibility." He's also been accused of trying to be "the right kind of Jew," meaning that he has been willing to be critical of Israel over the Gaza situation.

On his podcast, he spoke to Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian former Columbia University grad school student who organized anti-Israel protests on the school's Manhattan campus. Klein has been rated as "left" by All Sides, meaning that he strongly aligns "with liberal, progressive, or left-wing thought and/or policy agendas."

The tuition at Sarah Lawrence College is some $64,000 per year and the students on that campus are permitted to engage in all manner of antisemitic speech. They called Klein a "Zionist pig" and have staged Gaza protests since the massacre of Israelis and Jews by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023.

The students chanted "Sarah Lawrence we know you! You protect Zionist Jews." Writing in the American Enterprise Institute, Sarah Lawrence professor Sam Abrams said that following the protest, Judd acknowleged in an email that their commentary was antisemitic. He said that this "marked the first time the administration spoke with such clarity about antisemitism on campus and about conduct that undermined the basic functioning of an academic event."

But for Abrams, the real issue is why the administration didn't try to stop it before it happened. He notes that "Sarah Lawrence is an intimate community where happenings travel quickly," which it is. I attended the school and earned my undergraduate degree there.

"Faculty anticipated the disruptions and learned of details by students," Abrams said. "Posters circulated—bearing an administrative stamp of approval—branding Klein, a mainstream liberal journalist, a 'genocide denier' and 'liberal Zionist mouthpiece.'

"The College itself sanctioned a faculty-sponsored counter-event that framed the speaker as morally illegitimate well before he took the stage. This occurred against a backdrop of repeated disruptions and incidents tied to Students for Justice in Palestine since October 7. The atmosphere was not ambiguous. It was charged, hostile, and filled with visible warning signs," he said.

The school administration knew the disruption was going to happen. They did not employ additional security in order to prevent the disruption. Judd sat complacently as the entitled students caused problems, insulted the guest she invited to campus, and then did nothing more than send an email the next day.

Sarah Lawrence, Abrams said, has permitted intimidation under the guise of protected speech and said that "Academic freedom does not obligate institutions to tolerate conduct that makes academic engagement impossible." Judd did not take on a leadership role ahead of the protest and surely not during, either.

Instead, she sat there and took it and in so doing demanded that her guest, Klein, sit and take it, too. The students learned that any measure of obstruction, refusal to have conversation, and demand that they may make will not only be tolerated but accepted.