Jews

• President Joe Biden's overall approval rating is steady at 44%, while Donald Trump leads the horse race by 4 points.
• "Despite legal and age issues, voters care most about how well Biden and Trump performed as president and on that measure, right now they favor Trump."
• The April Harvard CAPS / Harris poll survey was conducted online within the United States on April 24-25, 2024, among 1,961 registered voters by The Harris Poll and HarrisX.
• Follow the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll podcast at https://www.markpennpolls.com/ or on iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.

• In 2023, The Fellowship helped more than 4,000 people make aliyah (immigrate to Israel) from 35 countries around the world.
• Since its founding more than 40 years ago, The Fellowship has helped more than 770,000 Jews make aliyah from 50 different countries.
• "The fact that they want to make this journey even during a time of war in Israel shows how vital aliyah is.
• Aliyah is a key pillar of the more than 2 million people the Fellowship helps annually.

• A Muslim student at Michaela School in London has lost her High Court challenge against the school’s ban on prayer rituals.
• The school argued that the ban was put in place to avoid prayers “undermining inclusion”.
• But permitting religious diversity is a tradition in education in England.

Understanding secularism

• Michaela School has two-week holidays over the Christmas and Easter periods, and names them for these Christian festivals.
• The school week is Monday to Friday, which does not impinge upon the Christian day of rest.
• This is a version of secularism that benefits the members of one religion but not another.
• The state’s burgeoning financial involvement in education was accompanied by a pluralist approach to minority religions and denominations.

Matters of conscience

• It contained a conscience clause, allowing non-Anglican parents to withdraw their children from religious instruction.
• The end of Empire and the 1948 Nationality Act brought migrants to Britain from the Indian subcontinent.
• By the mid-1960s, Muslim children began to appear in schools in sufficient numbers that they were able to campaign collectively for the accommodation of their needs.
• And since the 1960s local education authorities and schools have accommodated Muslim needs within the same framework as those of Jews and Catholics.

Helen Carr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Two of them resigned shortly thereafter.
• Here, Lynn Greenky, a scholar of communication and rhetoric, gives her take on how Shafik handled being in the same hot seat as her colleagues.

How did today’s hearing differ from the one on Dec. 5?

• Of course, they had the benefit of being able to first see what happens when you don’t.
• Shipman in particular made it clear that Columbia is suffering a “moral crisis” on its campus.
• They even thanked the committee for the investigation and asked for the committee’s help to address antisemitism on campus.

What did committee members say about faculty?

• Several members of the Congressional committee singled out Massad, who on Oct. 8, 2023, described the Hamas attack on Israel as “awesome” and “innovative” in an online article, for particular scorn.
• The committee’s chairperson, Virginia Foxx, a Republican from West Virginia, warned that radical faculty remain a huge problem at Columbia.
• If not, she says, Columbia will be brought before the committee again.

Was there any conflict over what is hate speech?

• Shafik seemed reluctant to label students or faculty as engaging in hate and harassment.
• She tried very hard, sometimes unsuccessfully, to assert the need to balance constitutionally protected speech with the educational mission of the university.
• Still, Shafik frequently testified that the policies and structures in place at Columbia prior to the Oct. 7 attack were inadequate.

What action did Shafik and her colleagues say they would take?

• They said they are working on revising policies and practices that will promote vigorous debate while protecting student safety.
• As a result of some of the preliminary recommendations of Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism, the university has updated the reporting and response process regarding harassment and discrimination.

How will all this affect free speech on campus?

• Certainly, a college or university has a compelling interest in protecting its students, faculty and staff’s freedom, safety and integrity.
• Often, when colleges and universities undertake the task, I believe it is the freedom to speak one’s mind that suffers.

Lynn Greenky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.