US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS

US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has penned a letter to several New York-based universities, asking the higher educational institutions to amend their campus harassment policies to defend Zionist students.

In the recently sent missive, Torres urged administrators at the State University of New York System, Cornell University, the City University of New York, Columbia University, and Fordham University to go further in protecting Jewish students.

The congressman commended New York University (NYU) for expanding its anti-harassment and non-discrimination policies to protect students who support the existence of Israel. NYU’s new hate speech policies state that deploying “code words like ‘Zionist'” do not necessarily shield students from violating the university conduct code.

“The substitution of the word ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’ is the modus operandi of the new antisemitism. Colleges and universities must make it clear that word games will fool no one,” Torres stated. “Engaging in harassment, intimidation, and discrimination against ‘Zionists’ is antisemitism both in intent and in effect.”

NYU’s updated conduct policies state that Zionism is a core part of the identity of many Jewish people. Therefore, hateful speech aimed at Zionist students might trigger a punishment by the university. Moreover, the university states that attempts to exclude Jewish students from campus clubs or events through implementing a “no Zionist” policy could result in punishment. In addition, the university states that minimizing the Holocaust and calling for the death of Zionists might also run afoul of campus non-discrimination policy.

Torres has repeatedly lambasted universities for fostering a hostile environment for Jewish students in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. He has called anti-Israel campus activists and academics “pseudo-intellectuals” and condemned them for peddling antisemitism in the name of social justice.

Universities in New York have been roiled by antisemitism controversies in the months following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Columbia University student Khymani James, for example, publicly stated that Zionists “don’t deserve to live.” The Ivy League university has not confirmed if James has been permanently expelled from the campus. A mob of pro-Palestinian protesters held a demonstration in front of the City University of New York Hillel on Tuesday, shouting at Jewish students to get “out of the Middle East” and “go back to Brooklyn.”

Torres, a self-described progressive, has established himself as a stalwart ally of the Jewish state, especially in the months following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1,200 people across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Torres has repeatedly defended Israel from unsubstantiated claims of committing “genocide” in Gaza. He has also consistently supported the continued shipment of American arms to help the Jewish state defend itself from Hamas terrorists. Torres has levied sharp criticism toward university administrators for allowing Jewish students to be threatened on campus without consequence.