Minnesota
Five notes on the debate about antisemitism at the University of Minnesota • Minnesota Reformer
Nothing is simple. Everything is complicated.
The state Senate’s Judiciary and Public Safety Committee — led by chair Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park — convened on June 25 in order to spotlight “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incidents at the University of Minnesota.”
These were the words on the Senate’s published meeting schedule. They neatly convey the entanglement of Middle East politics with debates over the question of antisemitism, here in Minnesota as elsewhere. That leads to the first of several points worth making.
1. You can’t keep the Middle East out of a conversation about antisemitism.
Latz cautioned witnesses to stick to events at the U of M and not to get into Middle East affairs. But he repeatedly broke his own ground rules by grilling witnesses about their views on Hamas, its Oct. 7 attack, the future of Israel, and his (questionable) representations of some U departments’ statements condemning Israel’s war on Gaza. He described these, as well as various protest rhetoric, as calls for the “extermination of Jews in the state of Israel.”
Even putting aside such tendentious claims, if much of the evidence for antisemitism concerns stances toward Israel, Palestine, and various political ideologies — as everyone seems to acknowledge — then there is no narrow, local scope to maintain.
Apparently, however, you can keep Muslim student voices and all Palestinian Americans out of this conversation. That’s not too hard. Such students, who were insistently smeared as genocidal antisemites, were not there to defend themselves.
2. Every word in this debate is disputed.
You say “intifada,” and pro-Israel spokespersons say “terrorism.” Latz advanced personal interpretations of Arabic-language terms — intifada, which refers to an uprising, and thawabit, a concept including the right to resist occupation. The chair and various friendly witnesses described each of these as code for the mass murder of Jews, “terrorist antisemitic language” in Latz’s words. It’s safe to say that many others disagree.
That’s how it is with Israel and Palestine. For many, ambiguity is an enemy and almost every word is ground for information warfare. These problems were visible in a tense exchange between Latz and Beth Gendler, the leader of Jewish Community Action, as she contended that the definitions of Zionism, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism are disputed. He, apparently frustrated, responded by seeking to tarnish her as an apologist for anti-Jewish rape and murder.
3. Middle East politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Steve Hunegs, the longtime leader of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, was the final witness of the day. Before the hearing, he could be seen jubilantly embracing Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove. The JCRC long has made defending Israel its mission, and they will work with anyone who shares that mission.
The emerging division in the Jewish community over Israel and Palestine can’t be stifled, and it intersects with other cleavages to form two contending coalitions. On one side are the JCRC, Republicans, and some establishment Democrats. On the other are a diversity of identity-based social-justice groups, including JCA, and progressive Democrats. The reemergence of anti-Zionism among American Jews is driving this division wider.
Still, much of the conversation is familiar. In 1972, American and Israeli Jews met in Jerusalem and debated… wait for it… whether anti-Zionism equaled Jew-hatred. Many thought that it did. One prominent Israeli dissident, Simcha Flapan, cautioned in response, “There are many reactionaries who are pro-Zionist.”
4. Consistency is a constant struggle.
Oren Gross, a law professor at the U, and other witnesses remarked that, in liberal thinking, African Americans and other historically oppressed groups are authorized to define their own oppression, and that their experience of discrimination is deemed sufficient evidence of harm to them. So why not give the same consideration to Jews?
It’s a valid point. However, this whole discussion shows us how simplistic those precepts are. Groups who have suffered discrimination will disagree among themselves. Historically oppressed groups can be at odds with one another. The solution is not to extend problematic concepts, but rather to rethink them carefully.
5. Academic freedom is an orphan.
The U’s interim president, Jeff Ettinger, as well as Gross and another law professor, Richard Painter, testified, yet none of them forcefully defended free speech. In fact, the two lawyers ran over the idea with a truck, threw the truck into reverse, and then backed up. Gross, also an associate dean for academic affairs, was demagogic. He called Jewish antiwar protesters “Jews supporting Hamas” — which is absurd, and exactly the kind of terrorist-baiting rhetoric that fuels attacks on academic freedom.
Ettinger recently blocked the hire of a new faculty director of his school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, after the JCRC raised a hue and cry because the search resulted in an offer extended to Raz Segal, an Israeli American historian. Segal had written an article calling Israel’s war a genocide. Ettinger occupied a middle ground at the hearing, as he defended his decision, unpopular with committee members, to negotiate a de-escalation of campus protests this spring. Ettinger had thrown the political establishment a bone by refusing to hire Segal, and he talked as if the JCRC might have veto power in a do-over search.
It seemed no coincidence when immediately after controversy erupted over Ettinger’s interference with academic freedom — which now has led to a faculty vote of no-confidence in him — Latz announced the antisemitism hearing,
A JCRC-approved search might still recruit a respected scholar. But then, the center’s director will be dogged by the perception they were hired because they met the JCRC’s political test. A comparative genocide studies center is relevant to multiple communities. Yet many continue to believe that any discussion of genocide ought to remain the turf of Jews — and specifically the right kind of Jews, the ones who continue to see in the memory of the Shoah a useful prop to support Israel.
It’s not a pretty picture.
Minnesota
Kyler Murray, J.J. McCarthy to continue Minnesota Vikings QB competition into training camp
The challenge for Kyler Murray as a newcomer to the Minnesota Vikings learning a complex offense has an extra dimension.
He has to take turns.
Committed to staging a legitimate competition for their starting quarterback position, at least during this less-urgent part of the offseason, the Vikings have divided the time in drills with the first team between Murray and incumbent J.J. McCarthy. That’s the way they’ll start training camp next month, too.
“You’ve got to put it together in a way that challenges those guys and see who responds, see who handles adversity well, and ultimately see who elevates the offense,” coach Kevin O’Connell said after the last practice of minicamp on Thursday. “It’s an open competition, and I want to see these guys in very unique and in many ways difficult circumstances elevate themselves and their games to help the Minnesota Vikings.”
There’s no deadline for the decision, O’Connell said, though for the Vikings to be at their best for the Sept. 13 regular-season opener against the Green Bay Packers they’ll likely declare their starter at least a couple of weeks in advance of that. The frequency and quality of repetitions during open-to-the-public practices in training camp will undoubtedly stoke the embers of speculation that fuel the popularity of this sport, but the coaching staff has a plan for putting both quarterbacks in as many meaningful situations as they can once the pads come on in camp.
“I wouldn’t read much into who gets what on which days,” O’Connell said, well aware of the intense scrutiny on this team’s quarterback depth chart for a third straight year since McCarthy was drafted 10th overall in 2024. “I know me saying that was the waste of the time that it took to say it, but we’re going to put together a way where we can put them in the different aspects of situational football that they need to get.”
Murray, the first overall pick in the 2019 draft who was cut by the Arizona Cardinals and signed with the Vikings for the veteran minimum salary for this year so he can try to cash in as a free agent for 2027, has been the presumptive favorite for the job even if he’s newer to the system.
“Now having to split reps, me already being behind, not getting the amount of reps you would typically want a guy to get learning an offense, that’s probably the toughest part,” Murray said this week.
Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said McCarthy’s offseason has “been a continuous upward arrow for him.” From O’Connell to wide receiver Justin Jefferson, all of the Vikings who’ve been publicly asked about McCarthy’s progress from his mostly rough 2025 debut have remarked about sharpened skills and fundamentals. But at some point, if Murray becomes the team’s long-term choice, McCarthy might well find himself playing elsewhere.
“I think I’ve made it very clear I wanted to be here, before I got here. I love this organization. I love the coaching staff. I absolutely love these players to death,” McCarthy said. “This is where I want to be. I feel like I can thrive in this system.”
The Vikings clearly still believe that to some degree, at least if patience were not part of the equation.
“It’s probably going to end up being a difficult decision,” O’Connell said, “just based on where I know those guys are going to go.”
Minnesota
Still above average, but Minnesota’s education lead is shrinking, annual nationwide report says
Minnesota remains a top state for children overall, but its education ranking has fallen as new data shows the state is recovering more slowly than its peers.
Minnesota ranked fifth overall in the nation for child well-being in the latest Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book released this week. But in the education category, the state slipped to 21st for the year of 2024, which is the most recent year cited in the report.
A year prior, in 2023, Minnesota ranked 18th in the nation, and the state was previously at ninth in 2019 and 2021, according to additional online data from the foundation.
This latest annual report, for the first time, compared some learning outcomes from before the pandemic to a few years after it. It found learning outcomes declined in Minnesota from 2019 to 2024, a trend seen in 47 states, but the data suggests Minnesota has been recovering at a slower pace than peer states, remaining ahead of the national average, but the gap thinned.
One example in the report is fourth grade reading. In 2019, 62% of Minnesota fourth graders were not proficient in reading, and in 2024 that rose to 69%.
That was still one percentage point better than the national average of 70% in 2024. But in 2019, Minnesota was 4% ahead of the national figure.
A spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) said a representative was not available for an interview Thursday. In a statement, MDE still largely pointed to the pandemic, adding, “Assessments are one data point to be considered along with other evidence of student learning…” and that Minnesota “…continues to see important academic improvement.”
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS asked some K-12 parents whether they thought there could be more behind the numbers than a pandemic-era decline in outcomes.
“Definitely, I don’t even blame that. I think it was harder for them to get on track with being out of school, maybe socially and behaviorally, but I feel like the high class size has a lot to do with it,” said a Minneapolis Public Schools parent. “Then again, I’m not in the classroom; I can just see from her scores that I know she could do better if she was given more special attention.”
“This past year in Minnesota has just been so intense, and then 2020, right, was so intense. And, have we really had a year that wasn’t since 2020? So the kids are probably kind of stressed out too,” said a teacher and mother of a Minneapolis charter school student. “I feel like there’s so much just stress in the environment that it.. it’s not surprising.”
“I mean, I’d have to imagine there’s probably a lot of funding issues,” said a St. Paul schools parent. “I think it’s just really, like, about what that local area has for funding and what they do with the money that they’re taking in from taxes.”
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS also asked MDE whether it is considering any shifts in strategy or curriculum. A spokesperson pointed to recent financial investments including universal free meals and a 2023 state law that changed how reading is taught and required the same approach statewide.
See MDE’s full response below:
“The Kids Count data reflect the reality that COVID-19 detrimentally affected schools across the country and students and families are still recovering from the lasting impacts. Yet, Minnesota is among the strongest-performing states on key measurements identified in the report based on National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and continues to see important academic improvement. The report also reaffirms Minnesota is consistently one of the best states for children.
“According to the report, math achievement levels among Minnesota fourth graders at or above proficiency on NAEP increased by 4 percentage points over 2022. Eighth graders’ math performance showed improvement on NAEP at all four achievement levels. Minnesota remains well above the national average for math.
“Significant public education investments in the past several years strengthen Minnesota Department of Education’s (MDE) commitment to ensuring every student receives a high-quality education. Universal free meals, the READ Act, student mental health supports, and COMPASS all contribute to overall child well-being and academic achievement, which are essential to the success of Minnesota’s children in the long-term. We have not yet seen the full impact of these investments, but the data show encouraging progress. Many districts across the state have reported significant increases in reading fluency in the classroom as they continue to implement science of reading-aligned curriculum. Full implementation of the READ Act is set for this fall.
“It’s important to take into consideration the complexities of comparing state-by-state data. Many factors influence how data are aggregated, including differences in local statutes, student demographics, retention polices, and assessment standards.
“While assessments may provide information about the extent to which students have learned certain concepts, they alone do not illustrate the whole picture of what students have learned. Assessments are one data point to be considered along with other evidence of student learning, such as student projects and assignments and other data from the district’s comprehensive assessment system. Statewide assessment results should always be used alongside additional evidence of student learning when used for data-based decision-making. Overall, the Kids Count report clearly shows children and families in Minnesota have excellent access to the resources and support they need to thrive.”
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