Anti-Semitism and Western Civilization | Kenneth L. Marcus

Learn more about the Benson Center📕https://www.colorado.edu/center/benson/ Subscribe to the Benson Center Newsletter📰https://cu.tfaforms.net/94 Follow us on Social Media📢 https://linktr.ee/bensoncenter Some protesters against the state of Israel have argued explicitly for the “total eradication of Western civilization.” Such calls reinforce the argument that the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, amounted to an attack not only against Israel, or the Jewish people, but against the values of the West more broadly. This argument is counter-intuitive, to some, to some in light of scholarship suggesting that anti-Semitism has been intrinsic to Western civilization for many centuries. This lecture will examine, critically but with candor, whether Western civilization has both facilitated and undermined this oldest form of hatred. More broadly, this lecture will ask in light of October 7 whether Western civilization is worth saving, both from its enemies and from its supporters. Kenneth L. Marcus is founder and chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University; and author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. He also serves by gubernatorial appointment as a member of the Board of Visitors of George Mason University and formerly served as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. In academia, he formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College School of Public Affairs and served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism. Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group. He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. #WesternCivilization #AntiSemitism #October7 #SavingWesternValues #CivilRights #KennethLMarcus #HumanRights #JewishIdentity #CulturalDebates #HistoryOfHatred #GlobalCivilRights #JewishRights #PoliticalPhilosophy #CivilizationDebate #boulder #boulderstudents #universityofcoloradoboulder #cuboulder