My point is that even with the understanding that he didn’t identify himself as Jewish, I still don’t think he did anything wrong.
Would you be comfortable with Pro-Palestinian students attending a pro-Israeli rally and approaching each attendee physically and taking photos and getting quite close to them? It shows disrespect. No one should be stepping over anyone unless it is a dire emergency.
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I haven’t read many posts here, so I apologize if this has been covered previously, but why does a college/university need to respond to terrorism in Israel?
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Just like you, I could not locate the original Resolution that failed to pass the Brandeis University student senate.
Example after example of terrible journalism from Brandeis University, Brandeis University’s student newspaper–The Justice, and two Jewish newspapers.
A strange question to be asking 400+ responses into a thread.
But the answer is because colleges respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Or attack on a LGBT nightclub. Or George Floyd.
So their outrage is selective.
Williams College as an example, however, never responds to ANY geopolitical events (see statement by the president there), no matter how terrible. That is a fair and rational policy.
I guess my larger question is, why do they feel compelled to respond to these events as well?
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My impression is that on the Brandeis campus at least, the initial vote was not considered a big deal; thus the briefest reference to it in the student paper. After outsiders took an interest, the article was amended to note why a Jewish student had voted against it, and the paper printed the text of the resolution that actually passed.
You can probably contact the student senate to get a copy; it seems no one else cared to do so. I suppose it was overtaken by events by the resolution that passed ( which was not widely reported by mainstream media).
As I wrote above, example after example of terrible journalism. Ridiculous to write so many articles without including the text of the primary focus of those articles. Leads one to wonder what is in the original Resolution that we aren’t able to read for ourselves.
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Didn’t it also include some language regarding campus clubs and activities to encourage discussion-perhaps it was so long-winded no one wanted to devote the space to it. Journalists are acutely aware of just how many words they are allotted. The student government could have posted it somewhere, though.
UChicago has the same approach. Here is their statement after the Oct 7 attacks. It doesn’t take sides, but just offers support. And as a benefit, nobody is calling for UChicago’s leadership to resign.
The attack, ongoing conflict, and loss of life in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank have brought deep concern and sorrow to the University of Chicago community. Our Office of International Affairs (OIA) has extended support to students affiliated with the region who may be directly affected. We recognize that the loss of life, casualties, and escalating conflict bring pain and distress for those in our community, especially those with family members or other loved ones in the region.
UChicago is also committed to free and respectful expression by its students. There have been protests by both sides there, but it doesn’t make national news for the wrong reasons.
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Israeli / Palestinian politics are often in the background generally on college campuses. Most of the time, it is just a few extremist bigots yelling at each other and everyone else ignoring them. But current events lead them to be more obnoxious to everyone else, as well as bringing everyone else to notice (and sometimes naively getting pulled into extremism).
I completely understand, and agree with this assessment.
I would prefer that colleges and universities not publicly react to anything, outside of their duty to educate, that doesn’t directly affect their actual campus.
Institutes of higher learning should be conspicuously neutral.
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Problem is, even if the campus tries to stay out of it, protests and counter protests can become violent, or may interfere with campus business, or may feel threatening to some people in the campus community, etc. Note that the latter effects are often intended as the activists try to test the boundaries of freedom of speech and try to prevent others from ignoring them.
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Can’t a college/university address on campus disruptions without taking sides?
In theory yes. In practice, the groups being restrained in some way will then accuse the campus of being biased or bigoted against them or infringing on their free speech rights or something like that.
I don’t know if that college has a campus policy about taking pictures of fellow students against their objection.
Regardless, it would never be safe to step over a person, or to intentionally step directly next to a person laying down peacefully (what, if that person suddenly moves unexpectedly, or you lose your balance). That too is aggression/intimidation - as is the real (and in my personal opinion, intended) threat of doxxing!
I could be completely wrong: However, to an outside observer, this smells like someone intending to provoke the entire drama that resulted - to then add the belated context of a “Jewish student”. In that case there would be no “victim” here, just a successful stunt.
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I agree the colleges probably think this way, but I fail to understand why. The line between acceptable and unacceptable speech/behavior doesn’t seem fuzzy in my mind, and should be enforceable without appearing to take sides.
For example:
Protestors demanding “bring home the hostages now”, or “ceasefire in Gaza now!”, without resorting to violence, intimidation or hate speech - acceptable.
Protestors intimidating, harassing, physically or verbally abusing, or saying hateful things like “death to Jews” or “get rid of Palestinians from Gaza”, etc. - clearly unacceptable.
Is the line really fuzzy?
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How about doxxing or what appears to be threat of doxxing?
Also, hate speech can come under free speech protections, and some words or phrases may be literally innocuous but have implied meanings that could arguably be seen as hate speech or actual threats by some.
Is that a different result than what is happening today?
If there was a long standing record of neutrality, an institution could point to that in its own defense.
If protesters never achieved their desired result, would they be less likely to protest?
If a school was called on the carpet by both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters, who wins? I say the school would.
The first amendment provides protection from government actions. Private entities can enforce additional restrictions on acceptable/unacceptable speech.
Yes, but I don’t think it’s that hard to judge what’s hate speech to an average, reasonable person.
I know some people will find any speech by “the other side” as unacceptable but you can’t do anything about that.