POV: Campus Antisemitism Can Be Addressed by Encouraging More Speech, Not Less
Academia can be part of the solution
Photo via AP Photo/Vincent Ricci/Sipa USA
POV: Campus Antisemitism Can Be Addressed by Encouraging More Speech, Not Less
Academia can be part of the solution
The hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce regarding antisemitism at Columbia University two weeks ago was one more step in academia’s long journey toward addressing antisemitism, which has intensified on campuses across the nation since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, mass atrocities. Many worry that attempts to uproot antisemitism on campuses will inherently conflict with free speech. However, these worries are based on the mistaken assumption that restricting speech is the only tool available to schools. There’s a better way: schools should offer more and better speech, not less.
There’s evidence that information that challenges students to examine misconceptions, misinformation, and simple ignorance works. A poll conducted by University of California, Berkeley, Political Science Professor Ron E. Hassner showed both the ignorance that informs much of the debates on campuses and the potential to debias a significant percentage of those acting out of ignorance rather than malice. Hassner found that only 47 percent of the students surveyed who support the “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” call could identify the river and the sea in question. And when asked in which decade Israelis and Palestinians concluded the Oslo Accords, more than a quarter of the surveyed supporters of the call claimed that such peace agreements had never been signed. Even more remarkable, “after learning a handful of basic facts about the Middle East,” Hassner wrote, “67.8 percent of students went from supporting ‘from the river to the sea’ to rejecting the mantra.”
In 2010, I cotaught a course called The Legal Aspects of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict at Columbia University. The course, which was cross-listed in the Law School and the School of International and Public Affairs, was offered in response to an outcry that resulted from statements made by a professor that were widely viewed as antisemitic. It was a gratifying experience, in part because the rigors of legal analysis challenged students to go beyond their initial feelings and grapple with the complexities of the conflict by reading the primary texts, considering evidence, and applying legal standards.
Education about antisemitism and the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be mainstreamed throughout a school’s curriculum. Providing information about these issues is not enough. Knowledge acquisition needs to be coupled with skill development, specifically a refocusing on facts-based argumentation (as opposed to feelings-based argumentation); the ability to distinguish high-quality sources from low-quality sources and misinformation; and a shift away from black-and-white thinking and toward an ability to grapple with nuance and complexity. These abilities are valuable in all academic disciplines.
Consider legal education, where the problem runs not just deep, but also wide. American law schools underinvest, compared to other democracies with whose legal education I am familiar, in teaching international law, especially public international law—the branch of law that includes the law of war, humanitarian law, and international criminal law. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that most students don’t know, for example, the definition of the crime of genocide.
Law schools would do well to make international law a mandatory course. They should encourage instructors to include the law of war, international conflict resolution, and comparative law—in this context, comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to other international conflicts—as topics covered in such courses. The American Bar Association can support this by clarifying that its new accreditation requirement that JD programs address bias and racism includes a requirement that antisemitism be covered. Law teachers should also be encouraged to use pedagogical methodologies—such as simulated negotiations, role plays, and mock trials—to challenge students to delve into the facts, research the meaning of legal and other terms, argue both sides, understand and argue based on law and sound policy considerations, and develop empathy.
Donors who have been distressed to see their donations support the institutionalized development and dissemination of contemporary antisemitic thought could fund scholarships for the gold standard of experiential learning: travel to the Middle East for academic credit as a capstone experience for students who have taken a course on the topic. Professors leading such trips can help the students reflect on and process the realities on the ground, and students can meet the diverse populations of the region and the realities they face and make informed opinions.
To support such efforts, schools that want to lead the way should develop model syllabi, course books, and experiential learning materials—ideally in multiple languages to scale the effort globally—and offer them without charge. When we taught the topic at Columbia, my co-instructor and I used a course book coauthored by Israeli and Palestinian jurists. In so doing, we modeled mutual respect and dialogue. Such law-focused teaching materials can and have also been used at the undergraduate level and even at high schools.
Teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the current cancel culture environment could present a career risk for those undertaking the task. Schools can create train-the-trainers programs to help professors prepare for the task and sponsor discussion groups, newsletters, and conferences where instructors in the field can consult with and support each other, troubleshoot challenges that arise, and develop best practices.
As the world wonders whether the Israel-Hamas war could devolve into a world war, academia can be part of the solution rather than the problem—if colleges and universities work to help students (and faculty) transcend polemics and emotional reasoning through rigorous, evidence-based analysis. Not less speech, just better.
Maya Steinitz, a professor of law and R. Gordon Butler Scholar in International Law at the School of Law, can be reached at steinitz@bu.edu. This column originally appeared in the Boston Globe on April 23.
“POV” is an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international. Anyone interested in submitting a piece, which should be about 700 words long, should contact John O’Rourke at orourkej@bu.edu. BU Today reserves the right to reject or edit submissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University.
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