Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump tried to revoke Harvard University's ability to enroll international students—a move that was soon blocked by a federal judge. So, instead, on May 26, Trump floated the idea of taking US$3 billion of grant money, earmarked for Harvard's scientific and engineering research deemed of national importance, and rerouting it to trade schools.

Nevermind the logistics—the Republican president has waged an all-out war on Ivy League education, and Jews are, once again, caught in the middle. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has said the White House is "holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus."

But if you ask American Jewish academics, they'll tell you the "fighting antisemitism" argument is a smokescreen to advance a different political agenda. "I don't think the Trump administration's response to it is anything other than a fig leaf for its attempt to crack down on the university writ large," says David Schraub, an associate professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle. "We see that because when antisemitism, for whatever reason, isn't available to them as a talking point on the given campus, they just switch to something else. The consistent point is the crackdown, and the justification comes and goes."

Listen to this week's episode for more on how Jews are finding themselves used as pawns in a wider political struggle on modern American campuses.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

Over the last year, odds are good that you've seen what's been dubbed "AI slop"—unhinged, nonsensical "art" generated by artificial intelligence tools. Maybe you've seen a bizarre cinematic animated mini-movie on Facebook, surreal pseudo-photographs on Instagram, or propagandistic images on what was once known as Twitter, now X. After seeing enough of this, a realization dawned on Jacob Silverman, a journalist in New York who covers technology and politics: if it's machines making this art, and bots who are showering them with likes, where do humans fit in?

The answer is that actual living people are being squeezed out of what Silverman has, in a recent Financial Times article, deemed the "hostile internet". Elon Musk's X will sell advertisements, and authority, to absolutely anyone; AI-powered chatbots are worryingly easy to manipulate; and it has never been easier for people suffering from mental illness to find positive reinforcement of their ideas, both from distant humans and AI. None of this is to the betterment of humanity.

Silverman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss these trends of digital devolution, and how we can navigate these murky waters on a sinking ship.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

Yoel Inbar rose to prominence in the fall of 2023, when he was in the process of getting hired at the University of California, Los Angeles. He didn't end up getting the job—and it was transparently about a podcast episode he'd recorded a year earlier, in which he criticized "diversity statements". The mandated letters have become part of the academic hiring process, page-long essays explaining how the candidate would contribute to campus diversity. Inbar wrote one for UCLA—and has been involved in hiring processes, finding them useful tools—but has been outspoken of the concept as a blanket rule, along with the broader scope of diversity, equtity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Inbar studies morality and judgments, particularly with respect to belief systems, political ideologies and social attitudes. While his flare-up with UCLA happened before Hamas's attack on Oct. 7, he has since followed closely how poorly designed DEI programs are for adhering to students with differing views on political and social issues—like the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Inbar sat down with Phoebe Maltz Bovy to share his story and discuss how the campus atmosphere has shifted for Jewish students and faculty in the last two years.

Related links

• Yoel Inbar's website and podcast, Two Psychologists Four Beers
• "Saskatchewan professor blogs his way through mandatory anti-racism 'boot camp'" (National Post)

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle