Bard’s Kenneth Stern Interviewed in the New Yorker on the Problem with Defining Anti-Semitism

Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, was interviewed by the New Yorker about the complexities surrounding a definition he helped write. In 2004, Stern was the lead drafter of a definition of anti-Semitism that was adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The original intention of the definition, Stern told the New Yorker, was to help governments collect data on anti-Semitism. But he also believed that codifying this definition into law would set a dangerous precedent, exposing schools to civil rights investigations for allowing lectures or programs that included criticism of Israel. It “was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus,” he said.

Post Date: 03-26-2024