The exposure of the links between a leader of the Women’s March and Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, has led to the spectacle of many left-wing leaders defending Farrakhan, struggling to distance themselves from him without condemning him, or simply evading questions on the subject. To Chloé Valdary, some of the sympathy for Farrakhan on the left doesn’t merely stem from an inability to recognize anti-Semitism or bigotry in certain forms but from a more deep-seated affinity, based in the au-courant ideology of “intersectionality”:

Intersectionality has become . . . a rigid system for determining who is virtuous and who is not, based on traits like skin color, sex, and financial status. The more white, straight, or rich you are, the less virtue you have—and vice versa. Some have pointed out that it’s eerily similar to Christianity, complete with pointing out one’s original sin (whiteness), preaching repentance (admitting you’re privileged), and ritualistic attempts at salvation (working to dismantle one’s own alleged role in oppressing others). . . .

This framework that intersectionalists offer leaves Zionist Jews out of the equation for achieving social justice. It does not matter that Jews were historically oppressed and created the most successful liberation movement of the 20th century; it doesn’t matter that they suffered genocide at the hands of white Europeans barely 70 years ago. The fact that many Jews have white skin color is proof that they are part of the problem. This is why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed as a zero-sum game by many intersectionalists who believe the Israeli position is, by default, oppressive, simply because Israelis are viewed as “white.”

Curiously enough, intersectionality is [also] similar to the doctrine that Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam preach. In Farrakhan’s case, it is a much more overtly religious creed, but the principles are the same. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Farrakhan believes that “white people were not created by God but by the evil black scientist Yakub. . . . Because of the process by which Yakub created the white race, white people are inherently deceitful and murderous.”

In other words, Farrakhan also believes that white people were . . . born in original sin—the sin of being white. He also believes that people of color are superior to white people and that Jews are especially worthy of derision and persecution; thus, taking away Jewish power is key to bringing about redemption. One could argue that Farrakhan and certain progressive movements share this perspective. Why else would the Movement for Black Lives and the Women’s March leadership make statements about no other geopolitical conflict on earth except for one involving Jews?

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.