Anand Giridharadas is a brilliant writer and thinker who blogs at The Ink. In this post, he interviews Michael Roth, the President of Wesleyan College in Connecticut, who describes how he has handled student protests without calling in the police or trampling on free speech rights. Just days ago, Roth wrote an article in The New York Times advising that the best college choice is one where you don’t fit in; go outside your comfort zone. Be a nonconformist.
Anand writes:
In recent weeks, the wave of antiwar protest that began at Columbia University spread across the country, as did the backlash against it.
Many university leaders responded by shutting down student speakers, canceling commencement ceremonies, and ultimately calling in police to clear encampments and campus building occupations with mass arrests. Thousands of students, professors, and other protestors have been arrested nationwide; meanwhile, protests are ongoing, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce continues its fishing-expedition investigation of higher education, and the domestic battle over the campus protests continues to distract attention from the ongoing war in Gaza.
What is right here? Should universities crack down on students who disrupt campus life, even if their cause is just? Are there steps student groups could take to more clearly separate their movements from elements of antisemitism? Can the rest of society muster enough historical memory and thick enough skin to remember that students are often telling us something that we need to hear, even if we don’t want to?
One university leader has been grappling with these questions in an especially thoughtful way, in part because, in addition to running a university, he is a scholar of universities and of education. That grounding shows. Under Michael Roth, Wesleyan University has cut a different path from many campuses, by clearly and calmly reiterating students’ right to protest peacefully, as Roth did in this letter:
The students there know that they are in violation of university rules and seem willing to accept the consequences. The protest has been non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations. As long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.
At the same time, Roth has been clear about the importance of keeping people’s focus on the underlying war, not elite campuses; on the very real problem of antisemitic elements in and around the protests; and about the need to sustain campuses as places where students and teachers and others expect a mix of safety and challenge.
We caught up with Roth the other day for a conversation you won’t want to miss if you’ve been following not only the war but the fight over the war and are craving, as we have been, more light and less heat.
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Your statement of Wesleyan’s position on the continuing protests is notable for its simple recognition of the rights and responsibilities of all parties.
Can you talk about the decisions that went into your statement and why such statements have been so rare?
I am happy to talk about my statement, but I really want to emphasize that we need to turn more political energy toward demanding that the U.S. force a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, a return of the hostages, and, then, negotiations toward a sustainable peace.
As for protests at Wesleyan University: We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, or because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. But in the context of national protest movements, it seemed wrong to me to use “time and place restrictions” other schools have cited as reasons for shutting down protests.
Over the last week, I’ve gotten many notes from alumni, parents, and strangers chastising me for not making the protesters “pay a price” for breaking the rules.
So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says.
In this case, I knew the students were part of a broad protest movement, and protest movements often put a strain on an institution’s rules. They are meant to do that. The encampment was “non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations,” I wrote, and “as long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.” I added that we would “not tolerate intimidation or harassment of students, staff, or faculty,” and that the protesters, as far as I could tell, were not moving in those directions. I want to emphasize that this can change and that if the protesters choose to more seriously disrupt our work as an educational institution, they will face much more significant repercussions.
Last Tuesday we saw two very different conclusions to major campus protests; at Columbia, the administration — claiming it had “no choice” — called in the NYPD, made multiple arrests and cleared the Hamilton Hall occupation and lawn encampment. (Yale, UCLA, and others did similarly.) Reportedly, Columbia has arranged for the NYPD to remain on campus through the conclusion of the term on May 17. On the other hand, student protestors at Brown finally reached an agreement with the Corporation of Brown University to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a vote on divestment from firms connected to the Israeli military campaign. Admittedly, I am asking you to speculate, but can you think through what the process behind these different decisions might have been?
At Columbia, the combination of outside participants, intimidating antisemitic chants, and — most importantly — the destructive occupation of a building necessitated a much stronger response than has been necessary elsewhere. Administrators seemed to judge that the university couldn’t safely continue to operate. If that was the case — and I know there remain significant disputes about the facts — the protesters had to be cleared, and the penalties on offenders, I suspect, will be severe.
At UCLA, early indications are that police allowed counter-protesters to engage in violence. At other schools, students and administrators have been able to decide to do something positive for the situation in Gaza without engaging in empty but symbolically satisfying gestures. Divestment is a distraction. There is little indication that it has the desired effects, even in the long run. Gazans need a ceasefire and massive humanitarian aid now.
I’m curious as to how your scholarly work might have informed your thinking on this. Several of your books speak pretty directly to what’s happening (I think in particular of Beyond the University, Safe Enough Spaces,and The Student: A Short History). How does your work as a theorist of liberal education figure into your response to these protests?
All my scholarship is animated by a pragmatist approach, which means that I have a general suspicion of abstract principles and a commitment to working through problems so as to be in a better position to pursue one’s most important goals. My work before these education books was heavily influenced by Hegelian and Freudian models of thinking: an expectation that conflict is necessary for any important change and that unconscious motivations are always in play in crises. To put it simply: I expect conflict, and I expect acting out.
I believe that liberal education in America is always connected to civic engagement. We want our students to learn how to be better citizens while they come to understand the ideas and the contexts of whatever field they study. In Safe Enough Spaces, I argue that civic preparedness (to use Danielle Allen’s term) develops when students value free speech and political participation in contexts that prohibit violence and intimidation. Students don’t need to be protected from offensiveness, but they do need to be educated in situations in which they learn to think for themselves in the company of others. That’s what I call “practicing freedom.”
That’s why ideally we can make crisis moments like ours educational for the students. This does not mean we pander to them. On the contrary, they learn from teachers who resist their popular but dumb ideas, and who help students understand better how to pursue meaningful objectives over time.
The House Education Committee has now called three more university presidents — for the first time, three men, and two of them leading public universities: Peter Salovey, president of Yale University; Gene Block, chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles; and Santa Ono, president of the University of Michigan.
It seems quite clear that the committee’s animus towards the elite universities isn’t actually about the threat of antisemitism, protecting free-speech rights, or even ensuring student safety. What do you think the goal actually is for Foxx, Stefanik, and the other Republican members?
Despite my many years working on Freud and psychoanalysis, I don’t understand the deep motivations behind people who on some days cozy up to Replacement Theory and Christian Nationalism and on other days paint themselves as anti-antisemites.
For over a century, one has said that antisemitism is the socialism of fools. Today, anti-antisemitism has become the conservatism of knaves.
The political motivations of extreme right politicians are clear: they are riding the anti-elites train, the wave of rejecting people with expertise and credentials. By attacking so-called cultural elites, the extreme right avoids talking about economic elites. It distracts people with real grievances from the profound issues of inequality that plague this country. Rather than deal with child poverty, the so-called conservatives attack Ivy Leaguers; rather than force billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes, they turn our attention to protesters on campus.
Some news coverage has described university actions against protesters as driven by these Congressional hearings. Is that the case? What about donors or boards? Are you feeling any such pressure?
No.
What do you make of the charge that the protesters are antisemitic? Do you have a sense that there are actual connections among opposition to Israeli military action, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism? Or are we seeing a toxic mixture of bad-faith political entrepreneurship and angry, less-than-fully-informed student groups?
Of course, one can be anti-Zionist and not be antisemitic. It is clear that many Jewish students have joined the protests and that one can be very much opposed to the politics of Israel’s government (I am) and not be antisemitic (I am not).
I also think it’s pretty obvious that some of the protesters use antisemitic tropes, and that some of them don’t consider it possible for a Jew to be an innocent civilian. Hamas, which some protesters applaud, is viciously antisemitic. It considers the rape of Jewish women and the killing of Jewish babies not just tactics of war but an occasion for ecstatic rejoicing. It doesn’t get more antisemitic than that.
I remain appalled (but, alas, no longer shocked) that many protesters don’t seem to be concerned about their association with this terrorist organization. They don’t care. Although only a small minority of protesters might be overtly antisemitic, it is far too easy for many to accept Jewish deaths as the price for someone to be free.
This doesn’t have to be explicit for it to be hateful, especially from people who not long ago were concerned with microaggressions against other groups. Antisemitism enables far too many to accept the cheapening of Jewish life; it’s classic scapegoating. This is a very old story on the right, and also for more than fifty years among people who want to be thought of as progressive. If Israel changed its ways, would these people still be antisemitic? Yes. The thrill of being part of a movement trumps their basic moral sense.
Speaking of Trump, of course this will help him. If his people were smart enough to instigate the protests to divide the left and to whip up anger at kids on campus, they couldn’t have done a better job. My hope is that the civic preparedness that may be enhanced by young folks’ involvement in this movement will energize them to protect democracy in the fall.
What are the protesters’ specific demands at Wesleyan? What’s your sense of their actual overall motivations?
Also, what do you make of the common media framing of the protesters as “pro-Palestinian” versus counterprotestors who are “pro-Israel?” If we’re making the 1968 comparison, why not “antiwar” instead, since in a practical context they are mainly pushing for a ceasefire at this point?
The demands at Wesleyan resemble the BDS demands of some years ago. Very little to do with Gaza in particular; the demands have to do with isolating Israel economically and culturally. I would hope that students will turn their attention to having an impact on U.S. foreign policy and not the “cancellation” of a complicated country with a complex history.
As for being antiwar, I wish there was more of that idealism across the country. I prefer that good old naivete to what one hears from many in today’s movement. Many in today’s movement seem to think war (violence) is justified as long as you are “on the right side of history,” which today for them means the “anti-colonial” side. This is insipid, lazy thinking, and it leads to some of the self-righteous, close-minded rhetoric of people who in other moods might be defending free speech, democracy, and the development of the rule of law. It also leads to the same vicious moral callousness that the U.S. displayed in, say, Iraq and that Israel displays today in Gaza. People who had “God on their side” have done lots of damage, as will people who think they have “history on their side” today.
One thing I’ve been wondering is whether everyone is making a mistake by thinking of this movement in light of 1968. Is there built-in hyperbole here — on the left, seeing a protest movement as a looming problem for the Democratic convention, as a threat to a second Biden term; on the right, the useful specter of 60s-style counterculture opposition — that works against peaceful resolution of the conflict, regardless of how the students might see themselves? I don’t see as much media comparison to the actions against apartheid of the 1980s, which seems more useful (and in many cases then, university administrators either ignored or came to terms with the student movement).
Some of the opposition to the students is based on procedures. They are in the wrong space at the wrong time. Other opposition is based on the clear indications from many protesters that Israel should not exist as a state. These protesters have yet to opine as far as I know about the legitimacy of other states in the region.
Yes, I think the protests are a problem for politics in the fall unless young people take the political energies they’ve experienced and turn those energies toward building coalitions at home to win the next round of elections and to pass legislation that might facilitate the creation of a more just and peaceful world.
But at a time when we should be putting our full attention on getting a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, we are instead talking about fancy college campuses. At some schools, protesters seem more interested in investment policies or in campus disruption than in doing anything meaningful for Gazans. The media finds it easier to cover Columbia than Rafah. Let’s instead pay attention to the right things: We need a ceasefire and a return of the hostages now, and we need to get aid to Gaza.
At this point it looks like Hamas is not going to be totally eliminated. WIth Iran’s backing, it will survive no matter what Israel does in Gaza. And Israel, while winning the shooting war with too much collateral damage, appears to be losing the propoganda war with Iran/Hamas et al. I also think Iran is getting help from Putin in that propoganda war.
Still, Hamas must not be allowed to govern Gaza.
What can the US, UN, Iran’s MIddle East enemies (like Saudi Arabia and Egypt), Israel, and the Palestinian Authority do to remove Hamas from the leadership role in Gaza and get rid of all those tunnels that Hamas will continue to use even if they are not Gaza’s government?
I hope for a coalition of Arab nations that hate Iran (most of them, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates) to organize an election and exclude Hamas, helping to establish a renewed Palestinian Authority. All plus the U.S. should contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza.
Apologies for hijacking the thread, but check out this abomination.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2024/05/09/remote-learning-floated-as-one-solution-to-nyc-class-size-mandate/
“To reduce New York City’s class sizes under a new state mandate, Education Department officials floated one option to help principals comply: virtual learning.
In a plan released this week outlining ways that schools could meet the law’s goals, the Education Department suggested that some students could “receive regular remote instruction, potentially reducing the overall impacts on space in schools.”
Spinning up a virtual learning program would be optional, and the plan does not force principals to choose any specific method for achieving the new caps. It suggests 11 other possible ways principals could free up space, including repurposing rooms not currently used for instruction; boosting the number of classes taught by assistant principals; running student schedules with staggered start times; and ensuring students are spread evenly across classrooms.”
FLERP,
More virtual learning is not helpful.
Anything, anything at all, to avoid lowering class size by hiring more teachers. Smaller class size is the one intervention that actually works – and you do not need a new curriculum or cadre of consultants to execute it (may be why it doesn’t happen). Smaller class size will also improve teacher retention, because the staggering load on teachers’ back will be reduced. More kiddos will feel “known,” improving student engagement and attendance while reducing in school disturbances.
But they won’t do it.
Not just university presidents but now high school principals will have to deal with student protests. The following is from the Princeton Patch:
Around 50 students marched from the high school, carrying posters and chanting “Free Palestine.”
They then entered the Princeton University campus and joined the protestors at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
Journalist, author and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges was seen addressing the crowd at the encampment. end quote
Nothing was mentioned about any punishments for these students and I hope the high school kids don’t get punished for their activism. Of course the high schoolers are not disrupting the high school in any way except by their absence.
Thank you Diane, all very interesting and perceptive! About “ideally we can make crisis moments like ours educational for the students…. they learn from teachers who resist their popular but dumb ideas, and who help students understand better how to pursue meaningful objectives over time….”
Yes, teachers are vital, of course, also administrators and other staff, but I would add that students learn a huge amount from each other and their own interactions with the outside world. So I’d emphasize that “they do need to be educated in situations in which they learn to think for themselves in the company of others.” Obviously, armed police are not the best company for that thinking process.
Roth sounds to me like a voice raised in the wilderness of crying and screaming. One political party benefits from crying and screaming. The other does not.
Comparisons to the ’60s help frame the issue but no comparison.
’60s war protests were about: war, “peace,” public visual exposure to war for the first time (on tv), immediacy of reporting (for its time), horrid scenes and images and war crimes… AND the draft!
’60s protesters on college campuses were college almost 100% college students. Campuses had “teach-ins” to get facts out to those who might attend. Many of today’s protesters don’t know history, couldn’t find Gaza on a map a year ago if they had to, and do not distinguish religion from government. ’60s war protests did not have social media and choose the news you agree with. ’60s America had Walter Cronkite.
Also, Vietnam had American troops actually fighting in the war and “the draft” to populate the military. Today, we have NO skin in the game and our military is 100% voluntary.
while I must agree on most of your points here, there is one point I would highlight in a different way. Students in 1968 saw war news unfold on TV for the first time in history to be sure. Today, a similar experience finds modern students getting their information from a newly fragmented media showing video, some of which is faithful to what is happening, some of which is not.
Another similarity is that youth is still fundamentally idealistic and focused on the underdog. Israel was not under attack for very long. Gaza had seen months of attacks, allowing many who are now demonstrating to see Israel only in terms of its aggression. Sensitive to the underdog, many young people will arrive at the conclusion that Israel is the aggressor to blame, however misguided that may seem.
Interestingly, polls taken in the late sixties and early seventies showed that people 60 and older in the US opposed the war in greater percentages than did people under 25, when one looked at the nation as a whole. The hippies were not American youth generally. So, it is not a surprise that those young people grew up and voted for Ronald Raygun.
Bob: a good point. I suspect today that a majority of young people are not tuned into the same mentality as the campus demonstrations.
For all the word clouds feeding the growing fog of subjective attitudes, I’ve yet to see any mention of what a “Proper” response to displacement, should be. The time worn blame game excludes how one should respond after being deligitimized, to legitimize another. The know your place pill remains a hard swallow for those used as a stepping stone.
I’ve yet to see any mention of what a “Proper” response to displacement, should be.
Excellent question. By government? By the private sector? By displaced individuals?
Displaced individuals need to take to the streets. We saw this in the recent actors’ strike. These people got the studios to back off using AI to write scripts and act as characters in movies.
Michael Roth’s background as an educator is what allows him the wide perspective that protests are a teachable moment. He’s not a politician who engineered his appointment to the university like Mitch Daniels did at Purdue, nor has he been hired to undermine his institution as Ron DeSantis did when he hired Richard Corcoran to run Florida’s New College. No billionaire alumnus has appeared to intimidate the president.
When universities become sinecures and their presidents are not educators, these outcomes are predictable.
Well said!