Efforts to tackle student protests in America have backfired badly

PART OF THE reason Elisha “Lishi” Baker wanted to go to Columbia University, an Ivy League university in New York, was its Middle Eastern History programme. He loved his first year and says he “felt great as a Jewish student at Columbia”. But since on Israel on October 7th, the atmosphere on campus has changed. Within days there were protests. He heard students calling for an . He kept being told: “You’re interpreting it wrong”, but this week there was no misinterpreting, he says, the undercurrent of antisemitism on campus. “We’re coming for you,” other Jewish students say they were told: “Get off our campus.”University presidents are struggling with policing free speech on campus: how to deal with pro-Palestinian protests? Having seen the and the being forced to step down after their timid responses, they are trying a tougher approach. They are in danger of over-correcting.