As the climate on some campuses has turned threatening for Jewish students, we share essays from moms with kids at Yale, Northwestern and Brown. We also hear from a mother whose high school junior encountered protests on a recent tour of the University of Texas at Austin and from another whose son has decided to forego problematic schools like Middlebury.

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My son transferred to Northwestern at the beginning of his sophomore year. Northwestern’s academic year starts later than most, at the end of September, so he had only been on campus a few weeks when Hamas carried out its brutal attacks on October 7.

The reaction at Northwestern was swift and well-coordinated. An overwhelming number of student groups and faculty members signed petitions in support of Palestinians and admonishing Zionism. Since October, nearly every time my son went to the library, protesters were standing at the entrance shouting hateful messages like, “You are complicit,” and handing out leaflets about genocide to passersby.

He has had classes canceled by professors to encourage students to “stand in solidarity with the protesters.” He has been turned away at the door from campus-wide events because he was not interested in signing petitions to “End the Genocide in Gaza.” He has given up on joining arts-related clubs because many of them have leadership focused more on divestment from Israel and anti-Zionism than their stated reasons for being.

As they have at many other institutions, Jewish parents of Northwestern students have organized chat groups with donors and alumni to stay informed. By the time the anti-Israel encampment appeared on Deering Meadow in the center of campus in April, the temperature in these parent chat groups was at a boil. Photos of antisemitic posters, signs and graffiti from the encampment have circulated, including a video of one professor wrapped in a keffiyeh in the center of the encampment shoving a policeman. We’ve seen videos of student groups shouting “From the River to the Sea” and calling for “intifada revolution.”

Northwestern President Michael Schill was the first university president to invite campus protesters representing an encampment to the negotiation table. Although he was moderately successful in preventing violence, he failed miserably in enforcing his own newly amended code of conduct. In addition, he has yet to act on a single concern voiced by the university’s Jewish community.

The takeaway for many of us is that rule-breakers suffer no consequences, but rather earn a seat at the bargaining table. What kind of life lesson is that for an elite university to be teaching?

Meanwhile, we have seen no steps from Schill to address the deep-rooted antisemitism on campus. I am certain the hateful propaganda we’re seeing freely promoted would never be tolerated against any other group. Northwestern has previously denounced hate speech and strived to ensure that every group feels accepted—except when it comes to Jewish students. This is the reason seven members of Schill’s Committee to Address Antisemitism at Northwestern resigned last week, leading to the committee’s dissolution without accomplishing a single thing since its formation in the fall.

As a longtime volunteer with Northwestern’s Alumni Admissions Council, I have conducted dozens of interviews with prospective students. This year, the one applicant I interviewed who was accepted is Jewish. She has now declined her offer—and I don’t blame her. A fellow alumni interviewer reported being contacted by several families of students admitted through the binding early decision process who want to find out what their options are to renege on those acceptances.

All this pains me as a devoted alumna. As a parent, I’ve not only worried about my son’s safety on campus but have also felt sad about the disruption to his college life after he spent half of high school in his bedroom on Zoom classes because of the Covid-19 pandemic. He’s also terrified of anyone finding out that he plans to do an internship in Israel this summer.

His salvation may be that his major is not politically charged—meaning, it’s not in the humanities. I’ve heard from parents whose children are pursuing the humanities and who have troubling stories of professors who, for example, did not allow early dismissal to attend a Passover seder yet allowed other students to skip class to protest.

I am grateful that my son has adopted a coping strategy that involves focusing on his studies and intentionally avoiding the fray. Given the circumstances, that’s probably the healthiest course of action.

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Sara Mason is a freelance writer and editor based in Hingham, Mass. She has a B.A. from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.