While the news is filled with stories of campus demonstrations either condoning, “contextualizing” or “rationalizing” terrorism in the Middle East and denigrating or delegitimizing Israel; arrests of protestors; uncertain leadership at some universities; and an overall spike of antisemitic incidents on American campuses, it is worth noting that American university leaders are not a monolith.
Indeed, some university leaders have condemned the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel; denounced the murders, rapes, and hostage-taking of innocent people; and stood against Iran’s drone and missile attacks against Israel, which critically injured a 7-year-old Bedouin girl. Some universities and their leaders understand that any democratically-elected government has the responsibility to defend its citizens against murderous attacks.
As responsible members of Congress have pointed out, the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza must be urgently addressed to deliver life-saving support to the millions of conflict-afflicted civilians who need clean water, food and medicine. At the same time, we must also find a solution to the geopolitical uncertainty in Gaza that depends upon peace, development and a trustworthy government. The responsibility of political leaders is to improve their constituents’ lives, not put their lives and property at risk for ill-conceived political motives.
Indeed, some universities believe in educated and not knee-jerk responses; they understand that it takes more than a scroll through one’s social media feed or a stroll on campus to join the politically correct or loudest voices chanting slogans in protest. They understand that careful research, learning of facts and history are tedious and time-consuming but essential to the education process. They value the respectful expression of ideas and equally respectful listening. We work at and lead one such university.
Our institution, from its origins in 1860, endorsed diversity before anyone in higher education knew the word existed. We recognize that the situation in the Middle East is complex and depends upon both an understanding of world history and the histories of individuals. Our students and faculty may have diverse viewpoints, but all of these viewpoints must be expressed with tolerance and respect.
We embrace and encourage the rights of all Americans to express their opinions peacefully, and in a manner that recognizes — indeed, celebrates — the rights of others. We are committed to that search for truth through authentic academic inquiry, which is the hallmark of the community of scholars that constitutes a university.
True education comes from the exchange of ideas, but ideas can only be exchanged when they are articulated respectfully, and when other parties are offered a chance to respond. An absence of this is not education: it is rhetoric. We believe that wisdom arrives with the confluence of knowledge and values; that the right to express an opinion should not be ceded to placard-wavers and demonstrators forcefully occupying the campus quadrangle.
Leaders of universities have the same free speech rights as demonstrators. Moreover, university leaders must possess and exercise the moral conviction to use the pulpits of their office to articulate views that include a stand for decency. The academic quadrangle must forever be a free and ordered space that values scholarship. It cannot descend into a tent city designed to obstruct the passage of those who seek to teach and learn, to study at the library, and conduct research in the laboratory.
Unlike some institutions, we have been consistent in our message and in our policies. And we have reaped the fruit of those efforts.
We can only imagine that if some campus protesters were students in May of 1940, that they would have demonstrated in support of members of the British War Cabinet, such as the Earl of Halifax, who proposed peace talks with Hitler using Mussolini as an intermediary. This was tantamount to surrender to the Führer.
Perhaps, by 1945, these same protesters would have also denounced President Truman as an “unabashed war criminal” for civilian casualties incurred because the Allied bombings of Japan and Germany did not constitute a “measured response” to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the German invasion of Poland.
Americans should not despair about the future of higher education. What they see on the news does not represent the whole story. Some universities and their leaders have taken a stand in support of decency and they are not afraid to say so. And in the long arc of history, the voices of decency will be the ones that prevail over the transient shouting of the mob.
Kadish is president of Touro University. Halperin is the chancellor/CEO of New York Medical College and the provost for biomedical affairs of Touro University.
