Yes but asking a politician not to make something all about themselves, is like asking the sun not to rise or Alabama not to be the answer when a kid is a NMF.
That was my pointđ
This was a silent, non-disruptive, âstudy-inâ that lasted one hour. What exactly should Harvard have done?
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Prohibit signage in common indoor areas and provide designated spaces for outdoor protests that require pre approval for security reasons. The âprotestâ spaces should ensure that uninvolved students can navigate campus without being forced into close proximity.
A student regardless of their views should be allowed to go sit in the library stacks during finals week without concern or inconvenience. Some people just simply want to go snd study and should be free to do so.
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Libraries are for studying, period. Next fall, I donât want my son to suddenly find himself surrounded by either a pro-Trump or anti-Trump rally. Freshman year in college is already tough enough without the added stress of dealing with a political sit-in - especially if youâre the person who disagrees with the protestersâ message. Best for colleges to get ahead of the game and protect libraries and designated study spaces.
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All that would be fine with me, except that those policies would have had to have been in place prior to the event, and applicable to all, not just those who support Palestine. Otherwise it becomes obvious that the rules are purely driven by content of this particular speech, and by making some â but not all â students feel comfortable.
Would you really be objecting to a one hour, silent study-in if was in support of Israel? Would it be shocking if some of the protesting students happened to be wearing yarmulkes?
Fact is, these are same type of campus restrictions that many have been complaining about for the past many years. According to critics, campuses have been overly protective of marginalized groups, even in the face of hostile speech. It seems that many who were in favor of robust, uncomfortable, and even potentially offensive speech have changed their tune, now that happens to be pro-Palestine speech. That, IMO, is the real hypocrisy.
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Yes 100%.
Not at all a shock nor does it make a difference to me.
This has nothing to do with the message of the protest in my mind but everything to do with the ability to be left alone to study in a community access library.
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I donât disagree, provided the policies arenât being launched purely to shut down those with a pro-Palestinian perspective. While this may not fit you, it certainly fits many others. See @parentologistâs diatribe a few posts above, for example. Nothing content neutral about it.
The truth is that many of the same voices who have been clamoring to protect racist, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic speech on campuses are now trying to shut down pro-Palestinian speech, and that is pure hypocrisy.
And, when people are willing to protect the speech of outright antisemites/racists/bigots who happen to be Christian and/or white, but they arenât willing to stand up for Palestinian voices who disagree with the actions of the Israeli government, then one canât help but suspect that race/religion/bigotry is a driving factor.
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Maybe Harvard did nothing because just possibly the protest wasnât disruptive. According to the Crimson there were approximately 100 protesters. Widener Library holds around 3.5 million books. From Wikipedia, âIts 57 miles (92 km) of shelves, along five miles (8 km) of aisles on ten levels, comprise a âlabyrinthâ which one student âcould not enter without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle.â So, perhaps the space is big enough to accommodate a silent protest and students wishing to study.
Hereâs an interesting podcast on the issue where David Mednicoff is interviewed:
Prof. David Mednicoff (J.D./Ph.D., Harvard) chairs the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and also teaches in the School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts â Amherst
Mednicoff believes that students should be able to listen to perspectives that can challenge them, âsometimes even to the core of their identityâ.
â It is reasonable for a Palestinian Arab to hear an Israeli-Jewish student share their sadness and fear in light of the October 7 massacres. It is reasonable for a pro-Israeli activist to appreciate that thereâs a long history and even more important recent history of demeaning of Palestinian rights, particularly in the occupied territories.â
He also states, âIn general, I think that it is ill advised for universities to take political positions on global issues.â
Interesting perspectives from someone who is actually on a college campus.
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An appropriate dissent with your post would violate forum policy.
Kindly move your political assertion to the proper forum, starting with:
leading to this dreadful spin:
Tragically, 3 young hostages were equally idealistic about those âextraordinary effortsâ of their countrymen vis-a-vis unarmed civilians!
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The problem is that premise.
If fellow Americans are feeling âunsafeâ because how student peers feel about events the situation in a foreign country/region â then donât try so hard to make a shoe fit.
People quietly sitting down with books in any location, shouldnât make fellow Americans feel unsafe either â not everything revolves around them.
Maybe a student banner about Gaza is about Gazans.
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Just as a thought experiment, suppose the banner had said âAbortion is Murderâ or âAll Lives Matterâ or âThere are only two sexes.â Would all those who have no problem with âStop the Genocide in Gazaâ in the Widener Library be equally okay with permitting these in the library? If not, why not?
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Agreed - any current or future policy against unofficial signage should be universally applied.
However, regardless if I agreed or disagreed with some studentsâ expressions, I wouldnât remotely pretend, that that expression was secretly endorsed by all students, or the university itself.
I long for the days when the criterion was whether the demonstration was peaceful or not. The truth of the matter is no matter how noxious the wording, no one is going to be expelled from Harvard for standing in the library, holding a banner for one hour. Thatâs the sort of thing that happens in Tiananmen Square.
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So, my take on the Harvard Library issue is this: if this was back on October 10th and we had not had all of the calls for âIntifadaâ, the anti-Israeli protesting on Harvardâs (and many other collegeâs) campus, the signs calling for the genocide of Jews, the âFrom the River to the Seaâ chanting, the vigorous reappearance of swastikas, the tearing down of hostage posters by countless college students on many campuses, the denouncing by many college students of the rapes and murders of children by Hamas, the protesting outside of kosher dining halls and other Jewish buildings on colleges campuses, the statements in defense of Hamas made by college professors all over the country - and most importantly, the statement made by the Harvard president herself, that she would need âcontextâ in order to determine whether calling for the genocide of Jews could be considered hate speech on Harvardâs campus.
If all of that had not happened - then, maybe, the giant banner in Harvardâs library and all of the students in kaffiyeh who are only there to âstudyâ could be considered an innocent expression of free speech. But what Jewish students now have, on December 17th, is context. They are brutally aware of how these students feel about them and their existence in Israel and on the earth. The know that they have a college President who doesnât think that calling for their extermination has proper context to warrant her support or protection.
So, while some may argue that there is nothing to see here, that the giant banner and kaffiyeh-wearing students only want to peacefully study, the Jewish students now know the hatred that has been shown toward them since 10/7 and at Harvard in particular, they now know that the leadership is not interested in their safety - itâs no wonder that they would be concerned for their safety in the library. If Harvard leadership could salvage itself in any way, they could have declared a moratorium on protests of any kind in Harvardâs common areas during finals, including the posting of banners and signs. And really, the library on any college campus shouldnât be the place for protest.
Jewish students arenât being snowflakes here. The message is crystal clear.
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These events have caused a lot of us to reevaluate what are the reasonable rules of engagement between two peoples who have been at war with each other for nearly 80 years when both find themselves attending the same elite colleges at the same time. I donât think anyone has been that nimble in their thinking about the subject other than to fall back on their default silos. Obviously, if a college has something like a code forbidding hate speech, they should be looking at those codes with fresh eyes. And, places like the University of Chicago that take pride in the fact that they never had such a code might want to contemplate that pride oftentimes precedes a fall.
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Harvardâs early action applications dropped by 17% this year.
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Also, the Edelson law firm has pulled out of on-campus recruiting at Harvard because of Gayâs testimony and double-down. You can click a link in the article to the actual letter (which I would recommend reading).
Law firm Edelson boycotts Harvard recruiting events amid antisemitism controversy | Reuters
If Harvard isnât already concerned about the fallout, they really, really should be.
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If the sign a sign had instead referenced genocide in Israel or of jews, as some have alleged, would that have fit in the same category?
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While UPenn and Columbia are up â so a mixed bag.
In any case, itâs only right that everyone decides which colleges are their best fit, whatever their personal reason.
Itâs possible that diversity could improve as a result.
When I first read that statistic my first thought was actually that it was a result of the Supreme Country trial/rulingâŠIt will be interesting to learn more about speculated causes, which might be surmised once they look at the demographic data. Perhaps it is a result of such things as the confessional testimony debacle and related response to protests. Or a combination of both. Or perhaps it will all even out in RD.
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