npr.org October 14, 20235:00 AM ETLISTEN· 4:53
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas have extended all the way to college campuses in the U.S. There have been protests and strong statements and, at times, physical and verbal clashes. What are colleges supposed to do in these moments? To answer that question and tell us about what has been happening, we turn to NPR’s Elissa Nadworny. Hi, Elissa.
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: Hi, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So walk us through the week. How has this played out at colleges?
NADWORNY: Let’s first go to Harvard. So there, last weekend, a coalition of student groups issued a statement saying they, quote, “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for the unfolding violence.” Now, this statement was met with a lot of anger, pushback and pressure. And since then, some of the student groups have apologized or retracted their endorsements. Across the country, there have been vigils and protests on campus. At Indiana University, the student newspaper reported clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian student groups. And even before the Hamas attack, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been one of the most contentious issues on campus.
RASCOE: And how are the administrations of these universities reacting to all of this turmoil?
NADWORNY: We’ve seen quite a range of responses. The University of Florida president, Ben Sasse, a former Republican senator, came out and said, quote, “we’ll protect our Jewish students from violence.” We’ve also seen other schools, like Vanderbilt and University of Virginia, issue multiple statements, you know? They just can’t quite get it right. I talked with Eboo Patel about this. He’s the president of Interfaith America, which works with campuses around conflict issues.
EBOO PATEL: I got a phone call from a college president this morning telling me that his campus would be hosting a peace vigil, and he was concerned about a disturbance at that peace vigil possibly approaching violence.
NADWORNY: Patel told that campus leader and others, keep your message super clear and simple. Say, look, people are hurting. We care and support our students, and we will be a community of cooperation.
PATEL: We’re not going to minimize the conflict. We are simply going to say that we are not going to allow the conflict to prevent us from cooperating on other things. That’s the genius of American college campuses.
RASCOE: What about schools that have remained quiet, which – I mean, that can feel like a statement in and of itself?
NADWORNY: That’s right. Yeah. You know, surprisingly, some free speech advocates actually like this approach, though they acknowledge it will come with pushback. Here’s Alex Morey, she’s the director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
ALEX MOREY: The commentary is so divisive, and there’s really no right answer for a university. So what is so much better, but unpopular at the moment, for universities to do is to remove themselves from the debate entirely and instead say, we are not going to put our thumb on the scale as the university, one way or another, because that will chill the environment for free expression for scholarly inquiry.
RASCOE: Elissa, I’m guessing that many students right now are feeling like they are in the middle of all of this.
NADWORNY: Yeah. Many students are frustrated both about what student groups are saying and, in some cases, what universities aren’t saying. Here’s Caroline Yaffa. She’s a senior at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
CAROLINE YAFFA: I think it’s the university’s obligation to weigh in on this.
NADWORNY: Yaffa is Jewish, and she told NPR’s Rachel Treisman that she has had moments this week where she doesn’t feel safe on campus. She even changed her name on her Uber account from Yaffa to Smith.
RASCOE: And what about students who have organized pro-Palestine protests or are part of student groups that support Palestine?
YAFFA: Well, the National Organization of Students for Justice in Palestine told NPR that they expect universities to defend and protect a student’s right to speak, assemble and protest. Some students who are part of local chapters didn’t want to talk on the record for fear of retaliation. But I talked with Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, an advocacy group that focuses on academic freedom.
RADHIKA SAINATH: So many people have been coming to us as well who just have basic questions of saying, you know, can I say that I support Palestinian rights? Can I say that I stand against Israeli military occupation or for Palestinian freedom? Am I allowed to do this at my university?
NADWORNY: She said she’s heard from professors that say their social media posts are being questioned. Students say they’re facing harassment or doxing, where their names and addresses get released online. And Sainath tells them, look, the First Amendment right in the United States protects speech, even if it’s controversial.
RASCOE: That’s Elissa Nadworny from NPR’s education team. Thank you so much for joining us.
NADWORNY: Thanks, Ayesha.
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