What should happen to someone deemed to have crossed the line into antisemitism is a separate debate — albeit one that is equally important and, in the case of some of the universities which are refusing to implement the IHRA definition, pressing.
This is the crux of it. Too often, Jewish students are faced with lecturers who spout antisemitic tropes in the guise of objective analysis — and when a complaint is made, the response is almost always that the lecturer is merely expressing an opinion.
Having an internationally accepted definition against which such words can be judged eliminates that excuse.
If a university then wishes to defend the use of antisemitic tropes under the guise of free speech, so be it — but it will need to make that case, rather than, as happens repeatedly now, denying even that there has been any antisemitism.
The IHRA definition is by far the most intellectually rigorous and it is to the shame of those institutions that refuse to acknowledge it.
