This is the spring of my daughter’s senior year of high school. She and her friends are enjoying their senior spring break trip, but underneath it all is the anticipation of their college decisions.

My family, like the families of her friends, wonders what the next four years will bring as we think about letting our babies go off to college. For me, a complicating concern is how my daughter will navigate the Jewish community at her college amid rising antisemitism.

I am grateful to have interviewed Shira Goodman, VP of the ADL. 

We spoke about the ADL’s newly released Campus Antisemitism Report Card. As we go through the college decision-making process, I have been regularly checking the ADL website and Hillel’s websites.

Here is the good news. Things are getting better. More schools have A’s, and far fewer have F’s, only four. The schools my daughter is interested in, and therefore the ones I worry about, have for the most part improved. Some others still have far to go. I am looking at you, Ivies. That improvement did not come from prayers or luck, but from hard work by the ADL, the schools, and Jewish communities.

Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO, emphasized the impact of university leadership on campus climate: “The data confirms what we’ve said from the start: maintaining a safe campus climate is a matter of will. Universities that have taken a comprehensive approach, reviewing policies, clarifying expectations, and strengthening enforcement, are seeing meaningful progress. Some of the strongest gains are coming from institutions that have engaged deeply with our recommendations and translated them into lasting institutional practice, rather than symbolic commitments.”

There is, of course, some back and forth about whether the actions of administrations have positively or negatively impacted campus climates, and whether communities with large Jewish populations overreport antisemitic incidents. I heard from many of the campuses we visited that did not have the best grades that the ADL report card misrepresented their real-life experience.

According to Goodman, people respected the report card but believed their own university was misrepresented.

 That is probably good news, too, because the students at the 150 universities covered often feel safer than the report card suggests.

Goodman also said we should not let a lower grade on the report card prevent us from sending our child to that school. It is simply a tool to help us make decisions with information and open our eyes. She pointed out something I have only recently learned: regardless of the grade a school receives on the campus report card, and regardless of whether the school is even on the report card, it is essential for our Jewish children to find a Jewish community, Hillel or Chabad, and identify a responsible adult who, if there is an antisemitic incident or a health issue, they can go to for next steps.

Another significant change in the report is that non-Jewish students were surveyed to see if they had witnessed antisemitic acts.

 According to the ADL press release, 48.3% of non-Jewish students reported witnessing or experiencing anti-Jewish behavior in the past year, and 47.6% endorsed at least one anti-Jewish attitude. While that is less than half, it is still a substantial number.

Most of those students, however, did support action to address antisemitism. This leaves me with a difficult question. Is it better to send my daughter to a school with plenty of Jewish students, and perhaps more overt antisemitism, or to a school with fewer Jewish students and less explicit, but still present, antisemitism? Is there strength in numbers on a battlefield, or in being by herself in a calmer environment?

What I appreciated most in speaking with Goodman was her reminder that Jewish students are not passive in this story. They are organizing, building communities, supporting each other, and finding ways to live Jewish lives on campus, even in difficult moments. The institutions matter, but so does the resilience and agency of the students themselves.

I realize that Jews have faced antisemitism for millennia, and it is a privilege that we can now discuss attending elite schools. My daughter’s non-Jewish peers, however, do not have to consider these same calculations.

After speaking with Shira Goodman and other Jewish professionals who work with college students, I am reassured that, despite the antisemitism Jewish students experience on campus, many of them are actually okay. It has, sadly, become part of their normal, but they have found ways to cope in what can sometimes be a challenging environment. I hope this remains true and that the kids will be okay.

You can hear the interview with Shira Goodman and other great discussions on the Kibbitz, a podcast I host with my friend Melissa Hunter.  You can listen by clicking right here.