Approaching the Academic Year With Apprehension

I love the beginning of the academic year. This feeling rests deep in my psyche. As a child in elementary school, I relished the time I spent in the stationery store (this was, after all, the 1960s), picking out the ruled paper, three-ring binders, multi-colored pens, and assortment of other school supplies I would need that year. I sometimes think I became a professor in part just to ensure I could continue to experience that joyous feeling.

This year, however, is different. In preparing to return to campus, I still look forward to being in the classroom, working with students on fascinating and complex texts, and introducing them to major events and issues that defined and in some cases transformed not only Jewish life (my area of specialty) but world affairs more broadly. It’s what might be happening outside the classroom that concerns me.

Like many others, the campuses where I teach in Southern California roiled last year with pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protests. They did not reach the levels of Columbia University’s or the University of California, Berkeley’s, but were not far behind. The protests more often than not resulted in division and disruption, sometimes in very ugly ways. These events left me, along with many of my colleagues and students, feeling confused, angry, and exhausted.

The conditions that fueled these protests—the ongoing fighting between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; and the pervasive anti-Israel animus—all still exist. I wonder, then, what awaits when I return to my campus this fall.

My deep sense of trepidation stems not only from the protests themselves, but also from a personal feeling of frustration at not knowing how to change the tenor of the conversation. Like other faculty across the country, I participated in panels, gave informational talks, and even posted myself at the center of campus with a sign that read, “Have questions about Israel/Palestine? Let’s talk. No shouting. No slogans. Just talk.” For effort, I clearly deserved an A. For effectiveness, I would assign a generous grade of C–.

Will this coming academic year be any different? How might we create an environment on campus where disagreement and protest still take place, but without shutting down conversation and leaving people feeling battered and excluded?

I have no magic elixir, and the suggestions I do have are not necessarily novel. Nonetheless, I think they bear articulating at this time.

First, all parties—students, faculty and administrators—should commit to the basic purpose of a university. Institutions of higher education exist primarily to create, transmit and contest ideas. This is what universities were designed to do, and what they, with proper attention, can do better than any other segment of our society. Discussion, a commodity in short supply last year, is an essential element in this enterprise. How, then, do we foster discussion and engagement on such critically important but also contentious topics? Let me propose three values that, if embraced, could work toward this goal.

The first is humility, the recognition that none of us knows everything about the situation and that we can always learn from others. Last year, campuses were filled with an air of boastful certainty, which may allow those displaying it to appear strong and resolute, but is the enemy of discussion.

The second value is compassion. There must be compassion for Israelis and Palestinians whose lives have been ended, upended, and forever altered. At the same time, there needs to be willingness to acknowledge the real harm that one’s actions cause at home. The attempt to remedy the pain experienced by those thousands of miles away was coupled last year with actions that produced harmful, hostile and even hateful conditions for members of the immediate community on campus. Such actions may be justified by slogans like “By Any Means Necessary,” but run counter to the values of a university, and in the end accomplish very little.

The final value is commonality. The goal of commonality is not to forge an agreement on the war or the broader conflict. Rather, it is a strategy for how to begin a conversation. Identifying elements, whatever they may be, on which there is some agreement, can serve as a bridge among people with varying perspectives.

This values-based approach can help to create the room for engagement and to promote discussion. These values also happen to be some of the most central values for Jews, Christians and Muslims. All three traditions hold humility, compassion and commonality in the highest regard. And so, although somewhat counterintuitive, perhaps what campuses need to inject into these discussions is more religion.

For some, these suggestions may come off as platitudinous niceties or worse, as ignoring the trauma and truly dire situation facing Israelis and Palestinians. Their suffering is real and must be addressed. My proposal, however, is modest. I am suggesting the need to inculcate an obligation to engage, to find ways that members of an academic community can create room for discussion, built on questions rather than conclusions. Anything that promotes bringing people together and discussing the issues should be encouraged; alternatively, anything that inhibits discussion, that alienates, disparages, dehumanizes or demonizes, or that casts the complex issues in a Manichaean proposition of good versus evil, should be rejected.

My second suggestion is directed particularly at university administrators. The leaders of academic institutions should make clear, early and often, their policies on demonstrations and enforce them accordingly. In most cases (and I include my own campus here), these policies exist not to restrict speech, but the very opposite: They are a way to ensure that all persons have an opportunity to speak and be heard. Protests should be an important part of campus life. But protests should not have unlimited scope. Those that monopolize a campus and disrupt normal campus operations, including classes, public events, and access to facilities, can limit the speech and expression of others and should be restricted. Deans in particular should help facilitate discussions about these policies, not only as an informational exercise, but also to bring together students and faculty who might otherwise be on opposite sides of the barricades.

I am sure there are other constructive possibilities, but these would be a good start. I would like to think that, if adopted, these proposals could create an environment that would not only remedy some of the worst abuses from last year, but also place American universities where they rightfully belong, as centers of thought and policy development on the most important issues of our time.

I would like to think this, but in all honesty I do not know if even these modest suggestions are achievable—and even if they were, if they would create the type of robust, thoughtful campus life that I wish to imagine. And that is why I remain apprehensive about returning to campus. For now, however, I am off to the stationery store. I need more binders.