Show your support for No Tolerance for Antisemitism by encouraging your fellow staff and faculty to participate in a sign-on letter to send your university leaders urging them to proactively counter antisemitism and make campus a safer, welcoming environment for Jewish members of the campus community.
[Letter to Staff and Faculty Urging them to Co-Sign]
Dear Colleagues,
As a (insert position) at (insert school), I am deeply concerned about antisemitism on campus. During the 2023/24 academic year, I observed and received reports from members of the campus community about troubling antisemitic incidents taking place on our campus that wholly undermine the values of inclusivity, respect and tolerance that our institution strives to uphold.
I am sure that I am not alone in this experience and that many of you have also witnessed an unprecedented surge in antisemitic incidents on our campus. In response to these incidents, I am organizing a letter to our administration to urge immediate action to address antisemitism and prejudice on our campus by taking a series of vital steps, including:
- Speak up forcefully against antisemitism.
- Rigorously enforce student and faculty disciplinary rules and non-harassment policies and ensure transparency regarding outcomes.
- Ensure that student groups are in compliance with all relevant policies.
- Refuse to capitulate to the demands of protestors violating campus policies and/or calling for divestments from and boycotts of Israeli and Jewish institutions.
- Create a task force or advisory group focused on campus antisemitism.
- Update security protocols and enforce time, place, and manner restrictions.
- Conduct trainings and incorporate antisemitism awareness into DEI.
- Consider mandating, for all staff and faculty, ADL’s free 45-minute on-demand interactive module to develop our collective awareness and understanding of antisemitism.
Collective action is vital in campaigning for our administration to take urgent action. By co-signing this letter, we can jointly underscore the gravity of this situation and outline a path toward remedying the damage that has been caused to our campus community. Together, we can advocate for a safer campus, free from the forms of discriminatory harassment we had all witnessed in the past academic year.
If you are able to co-sign, please respond to this email with your confirmation by [Insert Deadline Date]. Thank you for considering this important action. I hope that this can be a first step in our collective journey to addressing antisemitism and all forms of hate on our campus.
Best,
[Name] [Year]
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[Co-Signed Letter to Administration]
Dear President __ [or Supervisor Title and Name],
We, the undersigned, are staff and faculty members from [insert College Name], who are deeply concerned about the increasing rate of antisemitic incidents, targeting students, staff and faculty, that we have observed on our campus. As we continue to engage in our primarily responsibility of teaching, we can no longer ignore the disruptions to the learning environment caused by the antisemitism proliferating throughout our campus. Such disruptions not only interfere with the education rights of so many of our students, but they also leave many members of the campus community feeling physically and emotionally unsafe.
Antisemitism often escalates when there is heightened violence in the Middle East and, in the 2023/24 academic year, in the wake of the October 7 attack, there were countless such incidents on campus. As well as wholly undermining the values of inclusivity, respect and tolerance that our institution strives to uphold, these incidents can cause irreparable harm to Jewish and Israeli community members. (Insert examples and personal stories). Not only have these incidents made the campus space unwelcoming, they have fostered a culture of bias, exclusivity and intolerance instead of a climate where challenging topics can be discussed and debated through civil and conscientious discourse.
The [insert College Name] administration is responsible for failing to adequately address and prevent the drastic spike in antisemitic incidents on campus. As such, we strongly encourage the administration to uphold our shared values and begin taking steps toward re-building a safe, tolerant and inclusive campus environment by taking the following steps:
- Speak up forcefully against antisemitism.
- Rigorously enforce student and faculty disciplinary rules and non-harassment policies and ensure transparency regarding outcomes.
- Ensure that all student groups are fully in compliance with school policies.
- Create a task force or advisory group focused on campus antisemitism.
- Update security protocols and enforce time, place, and manner restrictions.
- Conduct trainings and incorporate antisemitism awareness into DEI.
- Consider mandating, for all staff and faculty, ADL’s free 45-minute on-demand interactive module to develop our collective awareness and understanding of antisemitism.
Continued failure to act, reactively and proactively, will lead to a campus environment that is so hostile to Jewish students, staff and faculty, and disruptive to non-Jewish members of the campus community, that [Insert College Name] will doubtlessly face significant harm to satisfaction rates and academic outputs, as well as to its reputation.
As such, we hope that you will sincerely consider our suggestions.
[Insert Signatories Here].