Campus Antisemitism One Year After the Hamas Terrorist Attacks

Executive Summary

Antisemitism on college and university campuses has rapidly escalated into a national crisis, with at least 1,200 incidents being recorded from October 7, 2023, to September 24, 2024. This alarming surge highlights the widespread normalization of antisemitic rhetoric and incidents on campuses and the increasing prevalence of anti-Zionist views that mask deeper prejudices. To further examine this issue, the ADL Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education (CCAE), the ADL Center for Antisemitism Research (CAR), Hillel International and College Pulse collaboratively conducted a campus climate study in the fall of 2024, surveying 1,030 Jewish and 1,140 non-Jewish students. Responses from non-Jewish students were gathered from 135 colleges and universities, while responses from Jewish students were gathered from 128 of these colleges and universities. This study aimed to ascertain how the campus climate has changed for students in light of increased tensions due to the Israel-Hamas war and to understand the extent and impact of campus antisemitism on college students.

The topline results, presented in this report, highlight concerning trends that underscore the urgent need to protect Jewish members of campus communities and foster an inclusive and safe educational environment for all.

There is a strong and consistent correlation between antisemitic and hostile anti-Israel attitudes and student minimization of campus antisemitism.

Students’ blindness about the seriousness and prevalence of the issue of antisemitism is in large part grounded in negative student attitudes toward Israel. Hostile anti-Israel attitudes not only contribute to students minimizing the severity of antisemitism on campus, but also justifying and normalizing it, leading to increasingly hostile environments for Jewish members of campus communities. Indeed, agreement with statements such as “Jews weaponize antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel” and “Israelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible” was associated with statistically significant decreases in perceived anti-Jewish hostility on campus.

A majority of Jewish and non-Jewish students report witnessing or experiencing antisemitism since October 2023.

83.2% of Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. A slight majority (51.4%) of non-Jewish students also reported experiencing or witnessing antisemitism during that same period.

Faculty members are promoting anti-Jewish rhetoric and activities on campuses at increasing rates, and non-Jewish students are much less likely to notice it.

More than a quarter (27.3%) of Jewish students surveyed said they had observed antisemitic activity by faculty, compared to only 6% of non-Jewish students. For Jewish students, exposure to faculty engaging in anti-Jewish rhetoric was associated with a significant increase in perceptions of a hostile campus environment and a decrease in confidence in the ability of administrators to address antisemitism on campus.

Confidence in the ability of administrators to combat campus antisemitism is alarmingly low.

66.2% of Jewish and 60.1% of non-Jewish student were not confident in their university’s ability to prevent antisemitic incidents.

Exposure to campus antisemitism is driving high rates of self-censorship.

Less than half (49.6%) of Jewish students reported feeling “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity and only 26.7% felt comfortable with others on campus knowing their views of Israel.

Low rates of reporting antisemitic incidents highlight a need for more robust and consolidated reporting mechanisms offered by colleges and universities.

An overwhelming majority of students (92.5%) who had reported witnessing or experiencing an incident of antisemitism on campus did not report the incident to campus authorities. Low awareness about what to do and a lack of confidence that they would get the help they needed drove many students to not report incidents of campus antisemitism.

Meanwhile, the majority (50.5%) of Jewish students cited the existence of clear reporting policies as being especially important to them.

Introduction

In light of the escalating incidents of antisemitism witnessed across college and university campuses nationwide, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) - through its Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education (CCAE) and the Center for Antisemitism Research (CAR) - partnered with Hillel International and College Pulse to conduct an in-depth campus climate study during the fall of 2024. This collaborative research initiative sought to examine perceptions and experiences related to antisemitism among both Jewish and non-Jewish students in the U.S. Responses from non-Jewish students were gathered from 135 colleges and universities, while responses from Jewish students were gathered from 128 of these colleges and universities. The survey is a vital follow-up to the November 2023 campus climate report, given the notable increase in antisemitic incidents observed following the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent outbreak of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Via ADL’s CCAE and Not On My Campus campaign, Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative (CCI) and on-the-ground presence at colleges and universities nationwide and by jointly leading Jewish communal letters of recommendations for administrators to do better, ADL and Hillel International have been at the forefront in advocating for safer, more inclusive campus environments for both Jewish and non-Jewish members of campus communities, rallying campus administrators, staff and faculty, parents and students to leverage actionable strategies to actively counteract antisemitic sentiments and behaviors. As a part of these efforts, the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL) was developed jointly by ADL and Hillel International in collaboration with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Through CALL, ADL, Hillel International, and our partners have been leading efforts to assist Jewish members of campus communities by providing free legal assistance and to ensure universities and colleges fulfill their legal obligations to safeguard students on campus. This survey represents a crucial addition to our ongoing, joint efforts, designed to highlight the continuous presence of antisemitism on campuses and to identify areas where data-driven interventions can be effectively applied in the future to make college campuses safer, more welcoming, and more inclusive for all students.

As part of this 2024 survey, extensive data was gathered from 2,170 respondents from 135 U.S. colleges and universities, providing insights into the direct experiences and perceptions of antisemitic behaviors and environments on college and university campuses.

The survey asked an array of questions to measure student perceptions of whether, and to what extent, antisemitism is a problem on their campus; experiences with reporting and administrative responses to antisemitic incidents on campus; and their comfort level with other students knowing about their Jewish identity or views of Israel. Students were also asked their opinions about whether and how well their campus administration had addressed the problem of anti-Jewish prejudice on campus and the measures they hope their administration will adopt to improve the campus climate.

The findings of the survey depict the grim reality that Jewish students must contend with daily. Worryingly, of the 83.2% of Jewish students who reported witnessing or experiencing antisemitism on campus, an alarming 27.3% said they have observed antisemitic behavior from faculty members, highlighting the troubling trend of educators – those tasked with shaping students’ learning experiences – endorsing bigotry and creating hostile intellectual environments.

However, perhaps most concerning is an increasing normalization of hostile anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes among students, a trend that is contributing disproportionately to the proliferation of anti-Jewish hostility on campuses. When asked to indicate their level of agreement with the statements that “Israelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible” and “Jews weaponize anti-Jewish prejudice to silence criticism of Israel,” nearly half of non-Jewish students at least somewhat agreed with each (44.2% and 49.5%, respectively). Further analysis revealed a strong relationship between agreement with these statements and an underestimation of the issue of antisemitism on campus, with students who agreed with each statistically significantly more likely to say that anti-Jewish prejudice on their campus is not a significant problem. The data shows that this minimization also often manifests as gaslighting of Jewish students who have faced antisemitism on campus—nearly a third of Jewish students, for example, said that they had been told by non-Jewish students what does or does not constitute antisemitism. These new findings underscore a troubling trend wherein feelings and perceptions about Israel blind students to the harm Jewish students experience at best, and justify and delegitimize it at worst.

In addition, though universities are widely recognized as staunch promoters of free speech, the increasingly widespread experiences of antisemitism have also had a stifling effect on the comfort of students expressing themselves when it comes to Israel or, for Jewish students, their Jewish identity. In fact, less than half of Jewish students feel ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity and only a quarter of Jewish and a third of non-Jewish respondents reported feeling comfortable with others on campus knowing their stance on Israel.

Critically, feelings of self-censorship – as well as safety – are closely tied to perceptions and experiences of a hostile campus environment, and Jewish students who had witnessed faculty engaging in anti-Jewish rhetoric were much more likely to perceive the campus environment as hostile and to believe that nothing would be done to prevent antisemitism on campus.

This data underscores the urgency for academic institutions to not only acknowledge the unprecedented scale of the problem, but also actively implement comprehensive measures to combat antisemitism on campuses and safeguard their campus communities. By heeding ADL’s Six Asks and joint ADL-Hillel guidance – developed in collaboration with leading Jewish communal partners - and crafting tailored data-driven solutions, educational institutions can work to ensure that all students, irrespective of their background, can thrive in an atmosphere of safety and equality.

Antisemitic Incidents on Campus

As in previous campus climate surveys, students were asked to indicate whether they had witnessed, been the victim of, or otherwise seen examples of antisemitic incidents on campus in the year since the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, 2023. Their responses revealed a widespread problem disproportionately impacting but by no means limited to Jewish students: more than four in five Jewish students surveyed (83.2%) said they had witnessed, experienced, or seen an example of at least one antisemitic incident on campus, as did more than half (51.4%) of non-Jewish students.^[1] These proportions are noticeably larger than those seen in the immediate aftermath of the 10/7 attacks, when 73% of Jewish and 43.9% of non-Jewish students indicated the same.

Students were asked about their experience with a variety of incidents ranging in scope and severity, from seeing antisemitic vandalism on campus to being the victim of physical assault. Across all incident types, Jewish students were significantly more likely than non-Jewish students to have witnessed or experienced antisemitism on campus. As in previous surveys, having been assumed to be Jewish seemed to have a priming effect—those previously assumed to be Jewish (but who were actually not Jewish) were more likely than those who had never been assumed to be Jewish to have witnessed, experienced, or otherwise seen some form of antisemitism on campus.

Nearly four in five (82.2%) of the Jewish students surveyed said that they had witnessed an antisemitic incident on campus, compared to 49.7% of non-Jewish students. Of the incidents asked about, the most frequently cited was hearing problematic comments about Israel, with 55.2% of Jewish students saying they had witnessed this compared to 15.5% of non-Jewish students. Similar numbers said they had heard someone make problematic or offensive comments about Jews, with nearly half of Jewish students (46.4%) versus 14.5% of non-Jewish students indicating they had witnessed this on campus since 10/7. Additionally, more than one in four (29.3%) Jewish students said they had seen a Jewish speaker on campus being disrupted by protestors, and more than a third (35.6%) indicated they had witnessed the disruption of an Israeli or pro-Israel speaker on campus.

When it came to firsthand experience of antisemitic incidents on campus, nearly half (48.2%) of Jewish students said they had been victims of at least one of the incident types asked about, compared to 15.4% of non-Jewish students who said the same. Many of these incidents were symptomatic of an increasingly hostile environment where Jewish students were singled out due to a real or perceived association with Israel: for example, more than a third (33.9%) of Jewish students said they had been on the receiving end of anti-Israel comments in conversation compared to 7.2% of non-Jewish students, and 14.8% of Jewish students said someone had sent them or tagged them in offensive anti-Israel content online, compared to 3.7% of non-Jewish students who said the same. Many of this spilled over into blatant anti-Jewish sentiment, with 18.5% of Jewish students saying someone had made anti-Jewish comments about them in conversation.

Figure 1

Ambient antisemitism is another indicator of campus climate, and the data underscored a wide-ranging problem. Indeed, more than four in five (82.9%) Jewish students and three in five (60.4%) non-Jewish students said they had seen or been impacted by any of a number of indirect manifestations of antisemitism on campus. More than two in five (41.4%) Jewish students said they had seen a Jewish sign or banner on campus that had been defaced, with 11.8% of non-Jewish students saying the same. Two-thirds (65.1%) of Jewish students said they had been impacted by campus disruptions due to anti-Israel protests, with 43.2% of non-Jewish students saying the same. And 41% of Jewish students had seen anti-Jewish vandalism on campus, compared to 15% of non-Jewish students.

Antisemitism coming from faculty members has been an increasing concern on campuses across the country, with numerous reports of professors violating campus policies by cancelling classes for students to attend anti-Israel protests, problematic rhetoric about Jews and Israel making its way into the classroom and extra credit being offered for student participation in anti-Israel protests. When paired with student-directed antisemitism and when one takes into consideration the unequal power differential between faculty and students, such activity from trusted professors contributes disproportionately to an unsafe and hostile environment for Jewish and non-Jewish students alike.

When asked whether they had witnessed anti-Jewish activities or statements from other students, faculty, or staff, more than a quarter (27.3%) of Jewish students said they had observed such behavior from faculty members, but non-Jewish students were significantly less likely to have noticed it (only 6% said the same). At the same time, having witnessed faculty engaging in anti-Jewish activities or statements was associated with a significant increase in perceptions of a hostile campus environment and decreased confidence in the ability of campus administrations to prevent antisemitism on campus—indeed, students who said they had witnessed anti-Jewish activities or statements from faculty members on average reported nearly a one-point increase on a five-point hostility scale.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Despite high rates of antisemitic victimization, reporting rates remain low

Of students surveyed, less than one in ten (7.5%) who had witnessed or experienced an incident of campus antisemitism said they had ever reported it to campus authorities. Although Jewish students were more likely to have ever reported an incident, rates remained concerningly low, with only 11.2% of Jewish students and 2.2% of non-Jewish students saying they had ever reported an incident. Though slightly higher, reporting rates were still concerningly low for students who had been the direct victims of antisemitic incidents on campus: only 16.2% of Jewish students who said they had directly experienced an incident reported versus 4.6% of non-Jewish students. Meanwhile, 11.2% of Jewish students who witnessed an incident said they had ever reported, versus 2.3% of non-Jewish students saying the same.

While there were a variety of reasons provided for nonreporting, these numbers point to a continued crisis of confidence when it comes to combatting campus antisemitism. The most common reasons given for nonreporting underscore both a lack of clear and consolidated reporting mechanisms and policies: 16% of students who had witnessed or experienced an incident said they did not report because they weren’t sure what to do, with similar proportions of Jewish and non-Jewish students providing this as a reason they did not report (18.6% and 13.8%, respectively). One in ten (10.6%) of all students said they did not report because they were not confident that they would get the help they needed (18.5% of Jewish students and 3.4% of non-Jewish students). Additionally, more than a quarter (26.3%) said they didn’t report because they did not think that the incident was serious enough (35.8% of Jewish students and 17.7% of non-Jewish students).

In addition to concerningly low reporting rates, survey data indicated significant gaps in how universities provide support to the few students who do report incidents. When asked whether their university provided any form of assistance after reporting an incident, roughly a third (30%) of students who said they had ever reported an antisemitic incident said they had not received any form of assistance. And for those who said they did, provision was inconsistent. Less than half of students said that their university provided guidance through the reporting process or that their university provided counseling or mental health services in the aftermath of the incident (41.1% and 43.9%, respectively), and less than a fifth (15.9%) said their university provided academic accommodations or assistance with changing residences.

Impacts of Campus Antisemitism

Direct student experiences of antisemitism, coupled with the broader nationwide spike in campus antisemitism, have led students to report a range of negative impacts, including concerns over physical and emotional safety, ostracization from social activities on campus and self-censorship of their Jewish identities or views of Israel. Unsurprisingly, these effects have been particularly noticeable among Jewish students. In the survey, students were asked what kind of social, emotional, academic or other impacts they had faced on campus in the aftermath of the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war. Their responses underscored the severity of the impacts of campus antisemitism. Nearly a quarter (23.3%) of Jewish students felt uncomfortable in classroom settings, more than twice the 7.7% of non-Jewish students who reported feeling the same way. 22.9% of Jewish students have felt compelled to take additional security precautions, more than five times the 4.9% of non-Jewish students who reported this impact, and 24.5% of Jewish students have felt like their friendships have been negatively affected, compared to 5.9% of non-Jewish students. Worryingly, as a result of the Israel-Hamas war, over six times as many Jewish students (13.2%) have withdrawn from campus or social activities compared to non-Jewish students (2.4%), and 3.9% of Jewish students have even considered transferring or taking a leave of absence from their universities. Overall, a majority (55.7%) of Jewish students reported experiencing at least some of these negative impacts, compared to 22.5% of non-Jewish students. Therefore, an evident outcome of the heightened rates of antisemitism on college and university campuses is the noticeable decrease in Jewish student participation in campus life and even academic activities, both due to perceptions of feeling unwelcome and due to active exclusion by other members of their campus communities.

Beyond these impacts, rates of self-censorship also continue to be troublingly high. Despite universities being frequently regarded as bastions of freedom of expression, less than half (49.6%) of the Jewish students surveyed in fall 2024 reported being “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity and 41.4% actively felt the need to hide their Jewish identity. These numbers represent an increase from the 38.6% who felt “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity in fall 2023, and self-censorship is still an issue among more than half of the Jewish student population.

Figure 4

Moreover, Jewish student comfort with others on campus knowing their views of Israel has fallen from an already low 37% in fall 2023 to only a quarter (26.7%) in fall 2024. This particular effect of increased antisemitism on campus extended beyond the Jewish members of the student population, with only 32% of the non-Jewish students surveyed reporting that they felt “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their stance on Israel. Direct antisemitic experience also had a significant impact on rates of self-censorship and feelings of safety, with Jewish students who had experienced antisemitism indicating lower comfort with others on campus knowing both their Jewish identity and their stance on Israel. Of the Jewish students who said they had witnessed, experienced, or otherwise seen examples of antisemitism on campus, only 55.4% indicated they felt “very” or “extremely” safe, compared to 67% of non-Jewish students saying the same. This data underscores two key points. First, antisemitic victimization – and university failures to adequately address or prevent it – creates hostile environments in which Jewish students feel significantly less safe than non-Jewish students. Second, the low rates of feelings of safety, even among Jewish students who have not been the direct recipients of antisemitic victimization on campus, highlight the systemic impact of campus antisemitism.

Figure 5

Regarding another key indicator of campus antisemitism impacts – safety, the 2024 adjustment in survey phrasing, which now explores overall feelings of safety rather than the distinct feelings of physical and emotional safety surveyed in fall 2023, makes a direct comparison with past data challenging. However, the 2024 data shows that only 60.2% of Jewish students report feeling ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ safe on campus, compared to 68.3% of non-Jewish students. For both Jewish and non-Jewish students, experiences with antisemitic victimization and perceptions of hostility were significantly correlated with lower feelings of safety on campus, but this relationship was especially strong for Jewish students. Having experienced an antisemitic incident on campus was associated with more than half a point decrease in feelings of safety for Jewish students, while the same was associated with a quarter-point decrease for non-Jewish students. Even when controlling for important demographic factors, such as gender, socioeconomic status, and political leaning, having witnessed, experienced, or otherwise seen examples of antisemitism on campus was associated with decreased feelings of safety. Thus, these findings are nevertheless cause for concern. They reveal that feelings of safety among Jewish students on campus continue to be alarmingly low, highlighting the imperative need for administrators to foster environments where all students, including Jewish ones, can participate fully in all aspects of university life without fears for their safety.

While a variety of incidents is likely to have contributed to these impacts, several types of incidents identified as major contributors include ostracization from campus organizations (with 20.2% of Jewish students reporting this experience), being blamed for Israel’s actions due to their Jewish identity (reported by 18.9% of Jewish students) and being treated differently by their professors, an issue reported by 3.8% of Jewish students. Having experienced these incidents were all statistically significantly associated with stronger perceptions of a hostile environment on campus and with lower confidence in campus administrators to prevent anti-Jewish incidents on campus.

Overall, these findings indicate that the issue of antisemitism on college and university campuses is extensive, with negative impacts felt by both Jewish and non-Jewish students. Yet, they also underscore the uniquely severe and pervasive effects of campus antisemitism on Jewish students, who are forced to take drastic actions and withdraw socially solely due to their identity – a reality that no student should have to experience during their time on campus.

Perceptions of Anti-Jewish Prejudice on Campus

In addition to tangible indicators of anti-Jewish prejudice on campus, such as victimization and self-censorship, perceptions of anti-Jewish prejudice on campus provide valuable insights into the pervasiveness of the issue. As in past survey efforts, respondents were asked a series of questions to understand how serious students think campus antisemitism is. When asked how problematic they think anti-Jewish prejudice is on their campus, substantially more Jewish than non-Jewish students said they thought it was very or extremely problematic—16.5% versus 8% of Jewish and non-Jewish students, respectively. Students were also asked to estimate how likely they are to witness or experience antisemitism on campus, with nearly a fifth (19.9%) of Jewish students versus 8.3% of non-Jewish students saying they are at least very or extremely likely to encounter it. As in past surveys, these questions when taken together are a reliable indicator of perceived hostility toward Jewish students on campus.

At the same time as more Jewish students than non-Jewish students consistently perceive more hostile environments on campus, there has been an ongoing debate as to what constitutes antisemitism that has often placed an undue burden on Jewish students. Indeed, nearly a third (32%) of Jewish students surveyed said that they had been told by non-Jews what is or is not antisemitism. Nearly half (49.5%) of non-Jewish students surveyed at least somewhat agreed with the idea that Jews weaponize antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel, while a similar proportion (44.2%) at agreed with the statement that Israelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible. Endorsement of such statements was associated with statistically significant decreases in perceived anti-Jewish hostility on campus, underscoring the point that higher levels of antisemitic attitudes on campus perpetuate a gaslighting effect wherein the problem of anti-Jewish prejudice on campus is consistently minimized.

What Jewish Students Need from their Administration

The data clearly shows an increasingly entrenched issue of systemic antisemitism on America’s college campuses, a crisis that is occurring in tandem with a crisis of confidence in the ability of university administrators to address the issue. Most students – regardless of self-reported identity – were not confident in their university’s ability to prevent antisemitic incidents, with only 33.8% and 39.9% of Jewish and non-Jewish students saying they were “very” or “extremely” confident, respectively.

Clearly, action must be taken by administrations to meaningfully address the scourge of anti-Jewish prejudice on college campuses. The survey asked Jewish students about a variety of policies and examples of Jewish life to determine which they consider to be important, as well as listed various incident types to understand which they consider concerning. The data provides a fuller picture of what types of steps universities can take to create safer and more inclusive environments for their Jewish student populations.

Most Jewish students surveyed indicated that specific policies and robust Jewish life on campus are important to them and also noted concern about antisemitic incidents on their campuses. The policies most frequently cited as being particularly important included the provision of special accommodations for Jewish holidays, with 59.3% of students indicating its importance. Also especially important was the existence of a clear reporting policy (50.5%) and strong and swift condemnation of on-campus incidents (51.6%). At the same time, a large proportion of Jewish students said that they considered anti-Israel events being held by student organizations to be particularly problematic, with 41.5% of respondents indicating this. Certain examples of Jewish communal life stood out as particularly important to Jewish respondents, with 61.2% of students singling out having an active Hillel or Chabad on campus as being especially important to them.

Conclusion

The release of this report and its findings marks the exact one-year anniversary of the release of ADL's Six Asks for campus administrators and the six-month anniversary of the release of the ADL and Hillel International comprehensive guidance – countersigned by several Jewish communal and educational organizations – for universities to heed in preparation for and throughout the 2024-25 academic year.

Although ADL and Hillel International have long been emphasizing the urgent need to address antisemitism on campuses and have consistently provided resources and policy recommendations to guide actions against these rising incidents, it is now more critical than ever for educational institutions to actively implement these policy actions to ensure that Jewish students can thrive in a safe and welcoming environment. In the meantime, programs like ADL and Hillel International’s Campus Antisemitism Legal Line serve as a crucial resource for Jewish students, staff and faculty to report antisemitic incidents and potential violations of their civil rights. This resource is a critical component of both organizations’ efforts to hold universities and colleges accountable to keeping Jewish students safe on campus.

Universities that fail to stand up to antisemitism not only fail their Jewish campus communities and risk violating their Title VI obligations, which mandate the protection of Jewish and Israeli students from harassment and discrimination, but they also compromise the very foundational values that higher education institutions are designed to uphold and undermine the broader educational mission of fostering an inclusive and respectful learning environment for all.

Appendix: Methodology

In partnership with Hillel International and College Pulse, ADL fielded a survey of college students at 135 universities across the United States in the fall semester of 2024. This survey was fielded by College Pulse, an online survey and analytics platform focused on American college students. College Pulse’s proprietary panel^[2] includes more than 950,000 students and recent graduates from more than 1,500 institutions of higher education across all fifty states. This survey employed an oversample of Jewish students, with 1,030 Jewish students and 1,140 non-Jewish students responding. Responses from non-Jewish students were gathered from 135 colleges and universities, while responses from Jewish students were gathered from 128 of these colleges and universities.

To ensure that non-Jewish students did not falsely self-identify as Jewish during the initial screening process, the survey asked a series of demographic questions, including religious self-identification. To identify Jewish students who identify as Jewish in some way aside from religion—for example, ethnically or by family background—those who indicated “nothing in particular,” “atheist,” or “agnostic” were then asked a follow-up question about whether they identify as Jewish in some other way. Response options included several dummy options, including Jewish, to avoid leading respondents to answer in a certain way to qualify for the study. This verification step showed that 417 respondents erroneously self-identified as Jewish, and their responses were excluded from the sample.

Though this sample is not nationally representative, the distribution of both Jewish and non-Jewish college students across key demographics ensures a wide range of diverse opinions and experiences could be captured. Students from two- and four-year and public and private institutions with varying undergraduate enrollment numbers were surveyed, with non-Jewish students responding from all 135 schools surveyed and Jewish students responding from all but seven of those. 

Acknowledgements

• Amy P Goldman
• Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust

• Anonymous (2)
• ADL Lewy Family Institute for Combating Antisemitism
• The Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation
• David Berg Foundation
• Lillian and Larry Goodman Foundations
• Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation
• The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation
• Erwin Rautenberg Foundation
• Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies
• The Jeffrey H. and Shari L. Aronson Family Foundation