Jewish students in Nottingham reveal the scale of hostility they’ve faced at university

Jewish students at universities in Nottingham have revealed the scale of hostility they’ve faced whilst in higher education.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, students across Britain have faced assaults, bomb threats and “baby killer” slurs amid growing hostility on UK campuses. According to a poll of 200 Jewish students, 45 per cent report experiencing cases of anti-semitism.

A Nottingham Trent student was faced with a discussion about Israel during a student society meeting. The student then said they were called a “Nazi sympathiser and retard”.

The student expressed feeling “pushed out” of the society due to the comments, stating that they were targeted because of their openness about being Jewish.

They shared that this often leaves them feeling isolated during debates, as they are frequently asked to give their opinion solely because of their Jewish identity. They also noted that they know of only one other Jewish student on campus.

A medical student at the University of Nottingham mentioned that her peers openly celebrated October 7th on social media and states that they “only stopped posting once they realised it was illegal to praise Hamas”.

A first year politics student at the University of Nottingham was left speechless after his seminar included an formal debate regarding Hamas. At the end of the discussion, students were asked to vote on whether “this House (the class) embraces or condemns Hamas”.

The student commented that they felt shocked by this experience. Adding: “As a Jewish student I had felt relatively safe – but this came from teachers. It felt like they were minimising October 7th, reducing it to a class time debate. It was upsetting.”

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The University of Nottingham released a statement in which they declared “universities should be spaces where students are given the opportunity to agree, disagree and debate any points of view, freely, openly and within the law and mutual respect for others”.

The spokesperson added: “The University of Nottingham upholds freedom of speech, and we actively encourage our student and academic communities to, discuss, explore and challenge ideas in a safe space.”

They then continued by saying: “Our teaching in the School of Politics and International Relations involves students applying international relations theory to contemporary experiences in an evidence-based way and this can involve engaging with challenging current affairs topics. We have a clear complaints process that we communicate to all our students, which would always involve speaking to the module convenor in the first instance to raise any concerns.”

The University of Nottingham also noted that there is a clear complaints procedure that all students are made aware of. The first step of this requires raising any concerns with the module convenor, further explaining that students may access the uni’s wellbeing services “if they have been directly affected by world events”.

Nottingham Trent University was contacted for comment but has not yet responded.