On my tortuous route to Catholicism, I stopped for a while among the Anglicans. I remember a song the Episcopalians often sang: “Once to Every Man and Nation.” As I watched the rising anti-Semitism on American college campuses, the lyrics of this song came back to me.
Once to every man and nation
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side.
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
James
Russell Lowell wrote these words in 1845 as a protest against the impending Mexican War, but they
ring true today as the United States faces a vicious wave of anti-Semitism.
Lowell was a
Harvard graduate, and he would surely be astonished if he saw the ugly rise of anti-Jewish
sentiment at Harvard University today. Indeed, racism at one of our nation's
most prestigious institutions is shocking. Commenting on this phenomenon, Bill
Maher observed that “Harvard makes students stupid.” Maher is undoubtedly correct.
All across
the country, college students are publicly endorsing hatred toward the nation
of Israel and Jews. So far, there has been minimal violence, but the rhetoric
exhibited at anti-Israel demonstrations is every bit as vitriolic as the Nazi
rhetoric of the 1930s.
Our nation’s
college leaders have remained mostly passive about the wave of racism sweeping
their campuses or have mumbled nothing but pious platitudes. They have not done
what they ought to have done, which is to expel racist students and fire antisemitic
professors.
Today's
college leaders have a moral obligation to take a public stand against the vile
racism that is spewing forth on their campuses. This may be the only opportunity
they have over the entire span of their entire careers to show some courage.
Lowell’s
words remind us that the opportunity for an individual to stand up to evil may come
but once in a lifetime. If college presidents don’t act vigorously and quickly to thwart
antisemitism on their campuses, they will show themselves to be nothing but
moral cowards.
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| "Harvard makes students stupid." |
