It was October 10, three days after Hamas had murdered 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more, and Jewish students at Middlebury College were trying to organize a vigil for the victims. They reached out to Middlebury’s dean of students, Derek Doucet, with a draft poster promoting the event, which they invited administrators at the elite liberal arts school to attend.
"Stand in Solidarity with the Jewish People," the poster read. "This will be an opportunity to honor the innocent lives lost in the tragic events that have struck Israel in the past days."
It didn’t go over well.
Here's the rest of the story.
Be informed, not misled.
In an email to students reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Doucet, who oversees student activities, pushed to rename the vigil and remove references to Judaism to make it "as inclusive as possible."
"Some suggestions that might help are stating that this gathering is to honor ‘all the innocent lives lost,’" Doucet wrote, including a reference to the "tragedies that have struck Israel and Gaza." He added that calls for solidarity with Jews could trigger "unhelpful reactions."
"I recognize and deeply respect that there has to be a place for purely Jewish grief and sorrow," Doucet said, "and yet I wonder if … such a public gathering in such a charged moment might be more inclusive with edits such as these."
Oh, the hypocrisy.
The need to include all groups—in a vigil mourning the losses of one—was selective and short-lived. Less than a month later, Doucet’s office approved a "Vigil for Palestine" hosted by the Muslim Students Association that began with an Islamic prayer and featured remarks from the school’s vice president of equity and inclusion, Khuram Hussain, who did not attend the Jewish vigil.
"Standing in solidarity,"--"Lighting the Path," the Muslim student group wrote in an Instagram post promoting the event. "Together, we honor Palestine."
The divergent reaction to the two events is one of the most shocking examples of discrimination outlined in a federal civil rights complaint against Middlebury, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
Last month, a pro-Israel nonprofit StandWithUs, which has sued other elite schools over anti-Semitism, filed a complaint claiming Middlebury created a hostile environment for its Jewish students by ignoring and, at times, impeding their efforts to combat campus anti-Semitism.
The school is apparently so anti-Jewish that they initially resisted calls for a police presence at the Jewish vigil in October, citing concerns that the officers could upset students, and asked the organizers of the event not to display Israeli flags, according to meetings described in the complaint.
The school later recanted on the police presence.
The Palestinian vigil faced fewer hurdles. According to a report in the school’s student newspaper, not only did Middlebury station a police car outside the event without hesitation, but it also offered up Middlebury Chapel, one of the largest event spaces on campus, to the Muslim group after interest in the vigil surged. The chapel was not made available for the Jewish vigil, which was held outside, even though it drew a larger crowd than the pro-Palestinian event.
Last Tuesday, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights told StandWithUS that it had opened an investigation into Middlebury based on the complaint. The office will review the allegations and provide a list of remedial actions for Middlebury to take if it finds that discrimination has occurred. Such probes can range from a few months to several years, depending on the office’s caseload
Colleges across the country have been accused of violating Title VI, the civil rights law governing recipients of federal funds, by turning a blind eye to the harassment of Jews on campus in the wake of Oct. 7. The Middlebury complaint goes further, arguing that the school has not only tolerated anti-Semitism but actively discriminated against its Jewish students, while wholeheartedly supporting Palestine as the oppressed, ignoring the actual history behind the conflict.
The cover-up.
McCauley responded that the recap was "not as I understood the conversation" and, in a follow-up meeting, castigated the student for putting the discussion in writing, according to emails reviewed by the Free Beacon and meetings described in the complaint. She then had Hussain, the diversity official who spoke at the Gaza vigil, produce his own recap of the meeting, which omitted key parts of the conversation and downplayed the student’s concerns, according to the complaint.
"Rather than address its antisemitism problem, Middlebury’s administration has attempted to hide and deny its existence," the complaint reads. "Middlebury is a leading example of a campus where hostility towards Jews and Israelis thrives."
Straight Talk.
Let me be very clear. Anti-Semitism is the road to destruction. Call it what you want, but at the end of the day, hating Israel is hating God. And it always leads to destruction.
Here's the path: First, it moves into the fringes of the political arena to a mainstream political party and its leadership. That's happening right now in America. Second, that political party begins to see anti-semitism as popular because the general public is not alarmed by it. Third, those who stand up in protest are vilified and abused in the media for standing against anti-semitism and socialism.
All three of those factors exist in America right now.
Why do Christians support Israel? Because Jerusalem is the epicenter of the Bible. Everything that's important from now on is going to happen in Israel. Jerusalem is the city of God. The Bible says, "I have placed my name there." No other city in the world can say that. Jerusalem is where Abraham placed Isaac on an altar of stone to prove his love and loyalty to a God he could not see. Abraham became the father of all who believed. Abraham was taken to a place, the Bible says, "Where God showed him a special mountain." It was the forerunner of God the Father, taking his son to a special place in Jerusalem, the place called Calvary, where he suffered, bled, and died for your redemption and my redemption.
Jerusalem was where Isaiah and Jeremiah penned the principles of righteousness that became the moral foundations for Western civilization. The reason America is in steep decline is because we've gotten away from our biblical foundations. We've gotten away from the family under which God has organized this nation. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." But we've removed Him from our schools. We've put the Ten Commandments out. We've taken the Bible out. Mention the name of God, and if you're not cursing, you will be reprimanded by someone telling you about the separation of church and state. "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is reproach to any people."
These are Judeo-Christian principles.
Consider this regarding Israel:
Genesis 12:3: "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
Isaiah 62:1: "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.