#KeepTheLightOn
The Time for Action is Now
We are a coalition of faculty and staff who stand for inclusion and against antisemitism at Tufts University.
Hatred and animosity directed toward Jewish people within the university community, inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war, has become permissible and commonplace. Sometimes it is subtle and other times it is overt. Much of it, but not all, is based on a lack of knowledge.
The Declaration on Freedom of Expression at Tufts closes with the statement that: “Achieving our educational mission requires an environment of respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue.” People will and should disagree and debate issues, but respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue too seldom occurs. Rather, intolerance and bias create an environment where antisemitism is common and may be reinforced systemically. Antisemitism under the guise of activism is still antisemitism, and failure to assess and address antisemitism condones antisemitism. Jewish students, faculty, and staff as well as non-Jewish students, faculty, and staff deserve and rightfully expect to learn and teach and live in an environment where antisemitism is challenged and the fear of harassment, discrimination, ostracism, and even violence is unnecessary.
On March 4, 2024, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar wrote: “It is our responsibility as an institution of higher learning to educate our students on the complex history of the region and to provide them with the tools to have nuanced conversations rather than rely on slogans, incomplete narratives, or simple yes/no votes.”
One of our goals is to help make this vision a reality.
We are Tufts United Against Antisemitism, united in the goal of supporting Jewish identity while working with the entire Tufts Community including the Tufts administration to facilitate an inclusive environment that is civil, open-minded, and free of hate and antisemitism.
Our Core Principles
Tufts United Against Antisemitism will serve as a resource to advance efforts to address antisemitism at Tufts and, more broadly, to work with the entire Tufts community to facilitate an inclusive environment that is civil, open minded, and free of hate.
1. To support students, trainees, faculty, and staff affected by antisemitism. Our message: “You are not alone.”
2. To promote education and discourse about nuanced, complex, or controversial topics, including but not specific to issues related to Israel, the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict, and the Jewish people and their history.
3. To promote the development of proactive policies across Tufts that prevent hate rather than relying on limited, delayed, and, thereby, insufficient responses to acts of hate.
4. To preserve freedom of speech and academic freedom. Freedom of speech includes the audience’s freedom to listen. Tufts University President Sunil Kumar on March 4, 2024, wrote: “It is our responsibility as an institution of higher learning to educate our students on the complex history of the region and to provide them with the tools to have nuanced conversations rather than rely on slogans, incomplete narratives, or simple yes/no votes.” To achieve this worthy goal, facts should guide all discussions on campus, including in classrooms, in lectures and seminars, and in extracurricular activities. Multiple perspectives should be promoted, empowering members of the Tufts community with sufficient knowledge to approach and evaluate complexity. No community member should have to violate their own moral integrity or identity in order to align with an instructor’s opinion on a topic or participate in an extracurricular program.
5. To support Tufts University leadership in their consistent enforcement of policies regarding inclusiveness and discrimination, ensuring that administrators treat anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli bias and hate with the same seriousness that they treat other forms of bias and hate.